


Fire Lilies

by thespicyricey



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst and Tragedy, Attempted Murder, Cannibalism, M/M, Minor Character Death, References to Drugs, Suicide Attempt, Temporary Character Death, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2018-12-31 10:09:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 116,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12130173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thespicyricey/pseuds/thespicyricey
Summary: Zitao has lost just about everything he's ever loved to the virus, including his family, his only friend, and his very own sense of compassion - but that doesn't mean he'll stop trying to find them again.





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

__________ 

 

 

 

I: Infected

(ĭn-fěkt'èd) _noun._

the state of having been contaminated with a pathogenic microorganism or agent.

 

 

 

__________

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_We are currently undergoing a nationwide pandemic and civilians are strictly advised to stay inside at all times until further notice._

_Bystander reports show that civilians exposed to the virus show signs of dysfunction, aggression, blindness, and even an immunity to modernized artillery._

_As of now, statewide reports have confirmed the death toll to have officially passed three hundred, and the Governor has called a state of emergency, advising all civilians that this is a remarkably dangerous breakout, one we haven’t seen since the fourteenth century._

_Medical reports from Health Canada and the World Health Organization show that every attempt at containing the virus and alleviating the symptoms has failed, and until further notice, the entire province is under national quarantine._

_They are exceedingly violent and should you leave your home, citizens are advised to take precautionary steps and not attack the infected._

_Military personnel will be around door-to-door to assist every family in need in such a sanguinary period and will provide you with rationed food and water._

_Civilians are advised to keep all doors and windows locked and barred if possible until further notice._

 

 

 

 

“Mom?”

The woman startles where she’s seated at their circular wooden dining table, hands jerking, and scrambles to shut off her radio. “Yes, my flower?”

His mom looks worried, apprehensive all across her face, eyes brimming with tears and lips tight and it’s so unlike his mom, why is she crying? Foreboding in her behavior and surreptitious in her words, telltale that something is clearly very wrong.

“What’s going on?” 

There’s a beat of silence before she sighs and stands from her seat, the wood creaking as her weight leaves it, and brushes off her apron. “Nothing, dear. Nothing at all.”

“Then - who was that? On the radio?”

His mother preoccupies herself at the sink, the plodding hum of water against the basin stannic as she evades the question. It’s never been like his mother to be so deceptive and ambiguous, especially when it’s only the two of them home. When his father is around, his mother becomes secretive and lies to him, telling him only truths when she has him privately. 

After a few more seconds pass, he lets it go and seats himself at the table, his mother’s hand-crocheted baby blue placemats latticed with cream and navy polka dots beneath his hands and a stray glass of orange juice on his mother’s mat. The edging is scuffed, scored as though with nails, and his seat wobbles just a pinch, but nothing is more frayed in that moment than his fidelity, not even the tatters of his mother’s apron ties along her legs. His mother is usually bright, full of energy and sweet smiles and warm hugs, bosom soft and hands comforting, but she’s oddly cold today. 

“Mom?” He repeats, and she shuts off the tap with a tight hand. It’s a long minute where she stands, just stands and exists, staring blankly out the window at the dimmed sun. Something’s off, he knows it, and he wonders why she won’t say anything.

Then, she turns, and the look on her face is pressed, rigid, something he’s never seen on his mother before. Her breathing is flat, meager, clipped breaths as she looks over at him where he sits. After a moment, she says, “Zitao, your father went off to work, right?”

She’s nervous, he notes. Her voice quakes when she uses it, too frail and too throaty. He answers her, because yes, his father went to work just that morning and kissed him goodbye, pressed his lips gently to his forehead as his son fought through the thick fog of waking up. After that, he’d come downstairs and played with his toys quietly while his mom slept upstairs.

His mom is tough, he knows. She fought a lot when he was born, just like his aunt had told him. She had told him that his mother nearly died in delivery and that their entire family considers him their miracle.

“Okay, Zitao,” she sighs and strides over with her throat in knots, and simply kneels down before him, her slip ruffling around her knees. “I need you to promise me something.”

He nods because he would promise his mother the world if she asked him to.

Then, she continues and keeps her eyes trained on the floor. “Something bad is happening, my flower. I… I don’t know when it’s going to get better.”

He frowns and traces his mother’s face with careful fingers, “Mom?”

“People are very sick, Zitao,” she tells him as she meets his eyes for the first time, and the amount of pain in her eyes is strangely turbid. “ _Very_ sick.”

 _People are very sick_. He feels like choking; is he sick? What happens if he gets sick? What will happen if his mother gets sick?

“Are we sick?” He asks, and his mother begins to hush him and reassure him that _no, we’re not sick, we’re not sick._

“Zitao,” she presses. “I need you to promise me, that no matter what happens, you will always keep fighting. No matter what happens to mommy, and no matter what happens to daddy, you will be strong and keep fighting like a big boy. Can you promise me that you’ll be mommy’s big brave boy?”

“I promise.”

There’s a tender kiss being pressed to his hair, but his stomach is in knots as if there’s something his mother isn’t telling him. He has a feeling that there’s more to this than he knows, than his mother lets off, and he has a feeling that it’s only going to get worse from hereon.

“I love you, Zitao.”

“I love you too, mommy.”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

  
 He presses his ear to his bedroom door, listening intently as the argument falls silent.

“What did you find out?” His mother asks from downstairs, voice soft and distant, and he has half a mind to crack the door open to hear better, but it being an aged townhouse, the wood creaks.

A thud, the rustling of paper. “They’re calling it the rebellion,” his father’s voice says. “They said there are three kinds of infected - the hungries, the regular infected, and the monsters. Each one is a different step in the virus, or generation, as they’re calling it.”

“What’s a hungry?”

“Changmin tells me they’re - they’re like feeders, they - they eat the humans to survive, but the difference is they look and act completely human, and that - they’re the reason this virus broke out because hungries can only be born into.”

"Oh my god. You don’t think - you don’t think Zitao is one, do you?”

 _Am I a hungry?_ He wonders. What does being a hungry feel like? Does it hurt?

“I don’t know, but Changmin said that the virus lays dormant for up to ten years before reacting, and that - that they have to eat live, clean meat or they’ll die.”

“Did he give you any tips on… on how to tell if someone is one of them?

His father blows out a breath. “Yeah, Lian. He told me that usually pregnancies exposed to diseases in the brain or the blood will develop this virus. He said - he said you probably put Zitao at risk when you got encephalitis.”

“Oh my God,” his mother cries, and his stomach drops. Is he really one of them? “You can’t - you can’t really think that our precious Zitao is one of them. God, this is all my fault.”

“Lian, I don’t know, but if we get caught with a hungry, they’ll have us killed.”

“So what the hell do you propose we do, Ziyang? Huh? Are you telling me to just let my son out there to get himself ripped to shreds?”

“No, Lian, look - there’s an organization downtown called the Sacrosanctum, and they take people like Zitao who have been exposed to the virus and they keep them safe and see how they can fight it. They’re right down the road, and they’re looking diligently for a cure, Lian. That’s our only option.”

“No, absolutely not. You’re insane if you think I’m letting strangers handle my baby!”

“ _He’s not a baby,_ Lian!” His father roars, so powerful and thunderous that the light on his ceiling shakes. “Stop treating him like he’s a toddler, he’s going to be ten!”

“He’s _always_ going to be my baby, Ziyang, whether you like it or not,” his mother disputes and Zitao feels like crying. “And if my baby is going, then I’m going as well.”

“Lian, you _can’t,_ it’s not meant for you - ”

“You are _not_ going to take Zitao away from me, Ziyang! I will **_not_** lose my only child over something that is _my_ fucking fault!”

“Lian, you need to calm down and think about this rationally. Guan-jie runs Sacro as a foster for children to protect them from the infected, and our home is no longer a safe zone, and you _know_ that. Just last week we had infected in our side porch!”

“The church is no safer than anybody’s house, just like how an underpass is no safer than a ditch. Your friend is going to be held responsible for the death of all of those children, and I’m not going to have little Zitao be one of them. I will not let our son die because you want to be reckless, Ziyang!”

“ _This is **not** about you, Weilian_!”

“This _is_ about me! He’s **_my_** son!!”

“He is _our_ son, don’t you _dare_ make this about you.”

An astringent scoff, a loud _slap._ “When have you _ever_ been there for Zitao? Everywhere he goes, I have to take him. Everything he wants, _I_ have to buy for him!”

“I work _every fucking day_ to be able to put food on this table, and you have the audacity to tell me that my son means less than nothing to me?”

“You’re a real piece of work, Ziyang, if you think those five minutes of you asking Zitao what he wants to watch on television are you having a relationship with our son. He is _not_ going to the church, and that is final!”

“You’re going to get him killed, Lian.”

“ _Then I’ll die with him, Ziyang! He’s **my** son_!”

That night, he lays face-down in his bed and cries. He cries for his mother, so distraught and angry and so very loving, and he cries for himself because he doesn’t deserve to be alive just to hurt others. Why would he want to kill others just to survive?

And for the first time in a long time, he gets absolutely no sleep.

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“Look, Zitao.”

He perks up where his mother is flagging him over, and in his waiting palm, she places three petals, dazzlingly peachy-white and milky and soft as heaven to the touch. 

“What are these?”

She smiles, and it’s been too long a while since he’s seen his mother smile. “They’re cherry blossoms. Remember you told me you always wanted to see the cherry blossom trees?”

Widened eyes, three single petals. “Are there trees here?”

“There sure are,” she coos and points over his shoulder. “Right over there, look!”

A beautifully vast ocean of cherry blossom petals scattered over the pavement, clouds of flowers blanketing the walkway in the most angelic light, delicate and soothing.

“Are they real?”

“Of course they are, my flower,” his mother smiles, and for just one single reminiscent moment, everything feels simple again. “Just as real as you and I.”

He yearns to reach out and touch, to feel for just a moment, to let the delicate petals flutter between his fingers and watch as the sun pours through the spaces in bright, effervescent light. “Can I keep them?” He asks; three single petals and a handful of the bunch. 

“Yes, you may, Zitao.”

His mother lends him his knapsack and he unfastens the front pocket and stuffs the flowers inside nice and genial so that they do not crumble, and she pats him on the head as he lays the petals themselves in his front breast pocket.

“Never forget when mommy took you here, Zitao. Never forget the cherry blossom trees.”

Not one, not two, not in a million years would his admiration for the flowers ever die out, not as long as he were living and not as long as he was surviving.

“Never, mommy!”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“Tao, can you promise me something?”

The look in Sehun’s eyes is dark, constricting, brimming with anxiety and Zitao wonders briefly if he’s gotten sick.

“Okay.” It’s all he can manage to say because he would always promise Sehun the world - he was his _best_ friend, after all, and he would sooner run into the crowd of infected than fail to live up to that title.

The boy takes a moment just to rub his thumbs over the back of Sehun’s hands, just staring at the slightly hair-peppered skin, glancing up at his friend’s face and his slowly-maturing features as he holds his entire world in his hands.

“Promise me,” Sehun starts, throat working around a swallow, “promise me that no matter what happens - even if… even if the rebellion kills both of us - you won’t hate me.”

The boy frowns and shakes his head, gripping his friend’s hands just a little bit harder, “No, I could never hate you. Nothing that could ever happen would be your fault, okay?”

Then Sehun lets out a sigh, and Zitao’s favorite world-famous Sehun smile spreads across his face, “Okay. Pinky promise?”

A smile, a life-long pledge. “Pinky promise.”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“Zitao, get **_back_**!”

His mother’s arms constrict him, eyes peeking out from underneath, Auntie Guan’s fists bleeding against the window. It’s inhuman the way the air thickens and his mother’s heartbeat rabbits wildly in his ears. 

“Mom?” He asks in fright, and her hands just wind around him tighter, hushed whispers growing exponentially louder. She herds him underneath the table, tucks him under her chin and into her cardigan, against that same breast he’d laid on every night when he was younger, yet as warm as she is, his blood runs cold where she holds him.

The piercing tinkle of the window shattering, a single resonant _bang._

He knows he’s not supposed to watch, knows that his mother tries her very hardest to keep him from witnessing the venality of what has become of the world, but his curiosity remains and it manifests in the most bitter of ways as his aunt’s body falls to floor with a loud thud, and his heart drops when he realizes her face is unrecognizable beneath the scar tissue and fibroid patchwork from the infection.

“Oh my god - _Guanyin_!”

“You - you shot her,” he cries in his mother’s arms, as the gun falls from his father’s evil hands and his father places his evil palms on his cheeks.

“No, I saved us, Zitao, she was sick,” he coaxes him, but Zitao isn’t stupid. “I had to keep us safe.”

“You didn’t need to kill Auntie Guan!”

His mother’s jaw falls, his father’s hands ache where they spank him, and his bed is cold where he’s punished until his death arrives, he’s sure of it. Until the very day he falls sick as well, and the rebellion swallows him whole.

_You didn’t need to kill Auntie Guan._

_No, I saved us. I had to keep us safe._

It burns deep down inside, boils in his gut as the anger rises, as he realizes that not once has his father made it a point to keep _him_ safe like his mother has, and rather makes it an _us,_ which could mean just about anything. It could mean the three of them together as a family, or in the shadows, it could mean just his mother and his father, sans himself. It hurts to think that his mother deserves the universe and his father has yet to realize why. 

It hurts to think that he could be forgotten.

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“Tao, can I show you something?” Sehun asks him one day in his backyard. It’s a warm day, just an inkling of clouds along the sky.

“Sure,” he says. It’s not unlike Sehun to find cool bugs or smooth rocks in their yards and bring them to him for his collection.

He expects Sehun to show him a new phone he got, or even maybe a girl’s number from school because Sehun _is_ six years his senior. What he doesn’t expect, however, is for Sehun to roll up his shirt sleeve, and show him the transparent, sallow blotch of skin on his forearm, completely devoid of any pigment or even singular blood cells, his veins dark in color and anemically thin. 

“Oh my God,” he breathes out, suddenly nauseous. “Are you - are you _sick_?”

Yet Sehun just smiles, proud and eerily sweet, and Zitao doesn’t feel well. “No. I’m just hungry.”

He blinks at his friend as the gears in his mind turn, as the puzzle pieces fall into place. “Sehun, are you - are you _one of them_?”

“Mhm,” his friend nods and Sehun thinks it’s cool, he thinks it’s a joke, and the realization makes Zitao sick. 

“Sehun, that’s not a good thing, you’re one of them! If the police find out, they’ll bring you to Sacrosanctum and they’ll kill you.”

His friend just looks at him with a casual countenance, as if it’s as normal as day for him. “It really doesn’t make me any different than you, Tao. Other than, you know, the fact that I could kill you, but I mean, every other human could kill you.”

Although it is a frightening thing to think about, it reminds him of the night his mother and father argued and his mother cried in fear that Zitao would eat them in their sleep, and such a thing really stings because Zitao would _never_ hurt his parents.

“Sehun, I - ” he starts, but the words get lost in his throat. “I think… I’m one of them, too.”

“I know, Tao. That’s why I told you.”

“What? You _know_?”

The boy nods and reaches out to take Zitao’s hand in his and with careful fingers, diligently peels back the cuff of Zitao’s sweatshirt sleeve. He doesn’t know how he’s never noticed before, because beneath his sleeve, is the same blanched skin tone, the same navy-blue veins as thin as sewing thread.

“I can smell the infection in you, Tao,” his friend says, and Zitao’s eyes brim with tears. “I just didn’t want to scare you.”

“So… I’m sick?”

Sehun sighs and releases Zitao’s hand. “No, not sick. Just different.”

“What do you mean different?” 

Something is stirring inside him, something he doesn’t like, and the fact that his one and only best friend is infected makes his stomach churn.

“Well, we do have the infection inside of us, but we’re not the infected. And we eat animals.” Sehun says it so casually like it’s a joke worthy of the half-hearted shrug he gives, but it doesn't make Zitao feel any better. His friend sighs, and continues, “It also means we have an advantage. I can see better at night, Tao. I can see them everywhere. They’re all the way across town, huddled up by that giant gate. I can smell them, just like how I can smell you.”

He swallows, “What do _I_ smell like?”

“Rust,” his friend answers simply, looking upward at the dented shingles. “Wheatgrass. Peanut oil.”

“Peanut oil?”

Sehun laughs, wholesome and smiling, “Yeah, but that last one is probably from your mom’s cooking.”

“I’m serious.”

“I am too,” he says, and Zitao could have sworn if he didn’t know better, he’d say there was a brief flash of pain in those eyes. “We’re not like anybody else, Tao. We have to kill to survive. I know you don’t want to, but you _do_ have a choice. You don’t have to kill anybody that you don’t want to, but you have to eat.”

“Can’t it be dead?” He tries again, fingers picking at the grass and plucking each strand from the dirt. They’re cold, how strange. “Like, already-cooked?”

Much to his dismay, Sehun shakes his head with a lackluster expression. “No, they have to be alive. Something to do with the bloodthirst of the infection.”

“Oh.”

“And Yixing told me,” he continues to say, “that we have to feed at least once a week. Other than that, normal food can sustain us, but not forever. We live like vampires, Tao. If we don’t feed, we die.”

“Is Yixing one of them too?”

“No,” Sehun says in a clipped tone, and Zitao wonders if maybe the subject is sensitive for him. “No, but his sister is. Look, the virus reacts at the ten-year mark, so once you turn ten, you have to feed. I know it’s really hard to deal with right now, Tao, but I don’t want to lose you like this. Please.”

The thought instantly makes him close in on himself, violently uncomfortable. There’s nothing in the world more frightening than the thought of committing manslaughter, and Zitao is devastated. 

“I don’t want to hurt anybody,” he mumbles and stares down at the patches of dirt as tears drip down his chin. He can’t do this, this can’t be the only way there is for him. This can’t be how he has to live for the rest of his time. “I - I can’t.”

“Tao, you _have_ to,” the boy tries again, and this time Zitao can see the luster of tears in the boy’s eyes. “I’ll - on your tenth birthday, yeah? I’ll take you for your first kill. Okay? It’ll just be me and you, nobody else, and I promise you won’t get caught.”

“ _No_ , Sehun, I _can’t_. I - I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

This time, Sehun doesn’t respond and instead opts to lean over himself and press his elbows into the meat of his knees, as he leisurely shifts the strands of grass between his fingers.

“Then you’re going to die, Tao.”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“Happy birthday, Zitao.”

A single cupcake is placed in front of him, all his mother could afford ever since his father’s hours had been cut in half, with a single white blue-striped candle pushed into its center.

He doesn’t feel nine. He’s sure that other nine-year-olds are supposed to be out playing hopscotch and four square, and tossing a football with their friends and sharing play cards. He doesn’t feel nine, not when he’s seen people die in front of his very own eyes.

“Will we get the lights back, mom?”

She presses the corners of her mouth into her cheeks, a bitter little smile that isn’t even really a smile, more so a curve of the lips. “I don’t know, my flower. We could be in the dark for a while.”

“Okay.”

It is okay because they’ve got candles. They’ve got the daytime sunlight. They’ve got his mother’s radio.

“Make a wish, Zitao. And don’t forget to blow out your candle.”

A wish. Wouldn’t it be great to wish the rebellion gone? Wouldn’t it be great to wish away all of your problems, and to be able to sleep well at night knowing they would be okay? Wouldn’t it be great to be okay?

He blows out the candle, and his mother claps for him and cuts his cupcake in half with a bread knife. 

“Would you like the other half, mommy?”

That sugary, artless smile. “Oh no, I couldn’t possibly. It’s _your_ birthday cake, Zitao.”

He pouts because for all he knows it could very well be the last birthday party they have. “I want you to have it, mommy.”

“Okay, Zitao.” She grins and presses her fork into the frosting. “A beautiful chocolate cake, for my beautiful baby boy.”

_I wish for mommy to not get sick._

_I wish for mommy to live.  
 _

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“Tao!”

He looks up from where he’s been playing with his miniature plastic cars in the lap of his overalls and beams when he sees a familiar offshore boy approaching him. 

“What’s up?”

The boy jogs over to his side and winces when he comes to a standstill, hands clutching his knees as he catches his breath.

“I got you a present.” Before he knows it, his best friend is reaching into the pocket of his shorts and procuring a small, slightly-nicked box, turning it over for just a moment to make sure the gift hasn’t fallen out, before reaching out to offer it. “Sorry, it’s a little - ya know, scuffed up. Ma said this was the best she could find since the stores have been pretty much ransacked.”

With wary eyes, he takes the box from his friend and looks it over, half-expecting it to be a prank and detonate the second it’s opened. “What is it?”

“You’re supposed to open it to find out. It’s not a surprise if I tell you.”

He snorts at his friend’s gall but carefully pops off the lid and sets it to the side. The first thing he notices is it’s a flower bright orange and speckled delicately in the center with light brown flecks. It’s a fire lily, a flower that his mom had told him couldn’t be found locally and which only grew in arid climates in the south of Africa, which Vancouver was not. It’s broached in a slight, tempered vial, laid in a transparent off-yellow resin, lustrous and kind like the sun. These flowers only sprout in the apex of summer on the eastern coast by Madagascar, which means that his friend must have gone on vacation to get this for him. After a beat of silence, the emotion takes over and he looks up in tears.

“You…” he gasps softly. “How did you find this?”

The boy just grins at him, proud as ever at his handiwork, “My mother got called to report to Africa to assist in a nursing program for the rebellion. I remembered that you always used to draw fire lilies in class and complained that you always wanted one to keep and have, like that time you said you wanted to decorate your _whole_ _house_ with fire lilies. So I told her to get you one.”

“Sehun…” he whispers. “You really shouldn’t have, I don’t deserve this.”

“Oh, please,” his friend scoffs and settles himself down onto his knees in front of him. “You’re the best friend someone like me could ask for. Besides, you didn’t actually think I’d forget, did you?” 

His eyebrows furrow. “What?”

“Happy ninth birthday,” he says cheekily and rests a hand on the boy’s head to briskly ruffle his hair, and Zitao realizes in that moment that Sehun waited until just this very second because he knows that they probably don’t have much time left to be alive. That thought alone makes him soft inside, so he braves it and puts on a smile simply because Sehun wants him to.

“Thank you.”

His friend had smiled at him sadly, a little bit bitter and a little bit broken, but Sehun has always been strong. Sehun is thoughtful, lanky, and sweet all at once, with a smile as wide as the sky and eyes that shimmer like stars, barely blue around the pupil and strikingly gray as the color fades outwards. Sehun is snarky, amusing when he wants to be, with worn-out thrifted jeans and a shirt two sizes too big. Zitao likes to think that his favorite aspect of him was always those ratty blue sneakers he wears because Sehun had once told him that he never liked to throw out things his parents gave him and that they should be cherished. Sehun was special.

“Sehun… when we get older, do you think we’ll still be alive?”

His friend ponders it for a second, before nodding at him with a shrugging motion, “Probably. And hey, maybe when we get older, you’ll marry me like you always promised and we can outrun the rebellion together.”

The feeling inside him wells gray, something far too mature for someone his age but something also too complex for his inexperienced mind to deconstruct; guilt. And if he didn’t know any better, he’d think that Sehun could read it all over his face.

“It’s alright, Tao. You’re young. You’re only still nine, how could I expect you to want to date me?” His best friend laughs, but the sound pierces Zitao through the heart. “Jeez, what am I, a pervert?”

“Sehun, don’t say it like that. Really, I’d love to go out with you when I get older!”

Sehun, the one who is always the most selfless for him, throwing himself down in the mud to keep Zitao from tripping over the rocks, or that time he dove into the lawn when Zitao fell from his neighbor’s tree after his football got lost among the branches. It was Sehun, his friend who was like an older brother to him, who simultaneously dislodged his football for him and helped him up from the ground, bandaging his scraped knees and holding him while he cried, and also took him in as the only real best friend he had.

“No worries, Tao. You’re just a kid.”

He had laughed, but there was no happiness in it.

_You’re just a kid._

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“You’re going to work today?” He asks in confusion, lips pouty and eyes heavy as he fights to stay awake. “It’s the weekend.”

His father presses his lips in a tight line and looks down at him under heavy lids. “I have to do something, Zitao. They want me to help monitor the quarantines and assist in rationing the food.”

He frowns, “What’s a quarantine?”

“It’s - ” his father struggles, “it’s the part of town where they keep the infected out. It’s where we are. We’re - we are in the quarantine.”

“Oh.”

 _Quarantine._ It sounds so frightening and so big.

“It’s meant to keep you safe, Zitao. As long as you and your mother stay in the quarantine zone, you will be safe.”

His father moves to stand, but Zitao is quick in latching onto the man’s belt loop and tugging gently, keeping him stoic. “Will you come back?”

There’s a long stretch of quiet as if his father doesn’t know what to say, or perhaps doesn’t want to say anything at all. “I will try. Go back to sleep, Zitao.”

_Go back to sleep._

“...Okay.”

It’s the first time his father hasn’t kept him up to say goodbye.  
 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

  
“Mom, can I go to Sehun’s?”

His mother looks up from her crocheting and gives him a dismal little look. “No, Zitao, I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

She sighs, “It’s not safe outside, Zitao. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“I won’t get hurt.”

“Zitao, you _might_. We don’t know.”

“Dad said I’ll be fine as long as I stay in the quarantine zone.”

This time, she sets her needles off to the side and looks at him. “Zitao, I said _no_. You can go another day when it’s safe.”

A pout. “But I want to go today.”

“I know you do, my flower, but mommy doesn’t want you getting hurt. You could get very, very sick out there, Zitao. I have to keep you safe by keeping you indoors because the police told me to, okay? Mommy doesn’t want to keep you inside, but I have to do what I am told because that keeps me and you alive.”

“Then… then why did dad have to leave? Is it safe for dad to be outside?”

A sad smile, a gentle touch to his knee. “Your dad is out there protecting you, making sure the virus can’t reach you. If we didn’t have people keeping us safe, Zitao, we would be dead.”

He’s quiet for a moment, thinking, lost in his head. “Like Auntie Guan?”

It must have been unanticipated, because the couch creaks when his mother turns to him, and when he looks up, there are tears dripping down her cheeks. “Yeah. Just like Auntie Guan.”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

He’s three weeks from turning ten when he kills his first cat.

Sehun helps him; he brings the mother cat to his backyard, old and feeble with hills for bones, beetling shoulders atop a rugged spine. “Sorry, she’s not very, you know - ” Sehun says with the cat perched in his arms like a brand-new baby, “muscular. I figured you would hate having to kill the kittens more.”

It’s a cooler day today, overcast and dense, the air hanging sticky in brumes of humidity. Sehun’s parents are out, down at the other end of town watching guard. His own mother is having a nap on their loveseat, laid underneath her son’s favorite eggplant quilt. Whence she slept, he headed into the backyard to play in the weeds. 

“So, how do I…?” The boy attempts, faltering when Sehun hands her over and he spreads his fingers along the cat’s matted fur. She’s twiggy, too undernourished, skin heavy where she’d held her last litter. 

“You just,” his friend makes a motion with his hands, curling them slightly and imitating biting down with curled lips and bared teeth, looking barbaric as ever. “Just make sure you’re careful, she might try to squirm away and bite you.”

His heart throbs sprightly when she rubs the damp of her nose into his shirt sleeve and purrs, and no, he can’t do this, not to a _live_ freaking _cat_. “No, no, I _can’t_ \- I - ”

“Tao, you can, you _have_ to,” Sehun presses and Zitao can hear the indicative strain in the older boy’s voice. Sehun’s patience with him is wearing extremely thin, eyes shallow and cold and it’s really not helping his bubbling anxiety. “You have to eat, you’re getting weaker by the day.”

He pouts, “I just haven’t been getting a lot of sleep lately. Mom and I are stressed a lot.”

His friend scoffs, and a rush of guilt floods him. “No, Tao, it’s because you’re not fucking eating. The longer you go without feeding once the virus activates, the weaker you get, and soon enough you are going to die. Do you really want that, Tao? You promised me.”

He sighs. _You promised me._

“Sehun, I just _can’t,_ ” he refutes and meets his friend’s eyes, and he’s teetering on the verge of weeping, he’s soggy and gross and too teary-eyed as he watches her snuggle into the panel of his sweatshirt pocket. She’s a _mother._ How would Zitao feel if a giant invaded their home and ate his own mother? 

His friend sighs at him, clearly worn out and emotionally spent, “Tao, what can I do to help you? Seriously, I’ll do anything.”

It’s a burden deep down, and Zitao wonders just how much Sehun’s kept himself up at night worried sick for him. He can’t even pretend to deny that he’s getting worse, especially not when he’s been sleeping near twelve hours a day and when he’s been isolating himself from his mother because she smells _really good._

It hurts because he knows he’s putting everyone in danger, and he knows that he’s only making it worse because the world isn’t forever and sooner or later they are all going to die, but the understanding that he is only shortening everyone’s time by procrastinating, yet going to such a crass extent to keep himself healthy doesn’t seem a worthy tradeoff. She’s purring in his lap, sleeping sweetly and a wave of grief overtakes him. “I can’t do it.”

He’s a mess of tears and self-hatred and the lack of Sehun’s reassurance is troublesome, and it cuts deep, but Sehun doesn’t understand. He’s only nine. How is he supposed to be okay with something like this, especially having to make it a daily occurrence? Just because Sehun is fifteen doesn’t mean that Zitao can do the same things just as easily.

“I’m sorry, Tao.”

He blinks and looks up at his friend, and he wonders if he’s been thinking out loud. Has he said everything he’s been thinking for Sehun to hear him? “Why are you sorry?”

Sehun tosses him a bitter little laugh just a step above an exhale, “What do you mean? I’m being insensitive. You’re only a kid, how could I have expected you to do something like this?”

 _You’re only a kid._ There’s that ugly sentence again, the one he hates more than anything. Why do his friends still have to think he’s a baby? 

Yet it’s true, Sehun really was just trying to toughen him up and expose him to the evils of a maturer lifestyle because Zitao is still just a kid, but the juxtaposition is still very sharp and he hates himself for being such a coward, hates himself for letting Sehun down and he hates himself for putting the people he would take a bullet for in danger. 

“I don’t want to die,” he admits quietly, glancing down at the mother cat and how cozy she looks across his lap. “I’m - I don’t want to die, Sehun.”

“I know, kiddo,” Sehun says, and Zitao realizes how much he loves his best friend and how much Sehun truly does care about him, and just how much Sehun has sacrificed for him. Sehun runs the risk of certain death every single day just by leaving his house to come spend time with him, and especially bringing a live animal into his yard. Zitao remembers his father telling him very strictly that no, they could not get a dog as a pet because if anybody was to be exposed to the infection first, it would be the animals. 

In spite of having the ability to smell the infection on other people the way he can smell it on Sehun, the cat is unsullied, and Zitao wonders for the first time if his father and the other officers have been lying to him this whole time just to fake a threat. Zitao remembers crying to his mother because he didn’t understand why they couldn’t have a puppy, and he remembers his mother crying because she didn’t understand either.

He manages to take some deep breaths, manages to muster up some grit and for once he no longer feels nine. “What do I have to do? How do I - how do I do it?”

Then, Sehun is shaking his head. “Tao, really, you don’t have to force yourself. It’s okay. We can try to wait another week.”

“ _How_ ,” Zitao presses, heart thrumming in his throat, “do I do it?”

He feels nothing but bothersome, and quite frankly, doesn’t see the appeal in his own life anymore. He doesn’t see why he is so special, why everyone is trying so diligently to keep him breathing. Wouldn’t it be simpler if he weren’t in the picture anymore?

His friend just gives him a crooked simper and gestures towards the cat, “You go for the neck, on either side so you hit one of the carotids. Make sure you don’t eat over yourself - she’ll leak a lot. Always hunch over, always lean forward. Also make sure you stabilize her body, like grip her at the waist so she doesn’t kick and the head so she doesn’t bite.”

Breathe in, breathe out. “Can you help me?”

This time, Sehun does scoot himself closer and holds out his hands, “Do you want me to take her for you? I can hold her.”

It’s heartbreaking the way she wails as she slips away, as blood pours through his teeth and his gag reflex rouses. The tinny flavor makes his veins twitch, stomach clenching and muscles spasming as iron washes over his tongue. She only fights him briefly, feebly, body jerking as it goes limp and her flesh slackens, and Zitao bursts into sobs as he tears his mouth away. 

Sehun cleans up for him, moves the cat off towards the trees for her to rest and instructs him to breathe deeply for a little while, and as each minute passes he can feel his strength returning, energy seeping into his pores, and for the first time in months he’s never felt so _alive._

“Don’t tell your parents,” Sehun blurts out, and Zitao realizes that he’s been worrying about what his mother would say this whole time. He’s never had to deal with this kind of pressure before, keeping an unconstitutional secret. The worry must be evident across his face, because Sehun kneels in front of him and opens his arms, an invitation for Zitao to come in for a hug, and Sehun just holds him, pets his hair, tells him he’s a good boy and how proud he is and how it’s going to be okay, and Zitao forces himself to believe him because it’s all he can do anymore.  
  

 

   
  


 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

He’s ten, he realizes when he awakes, sun filtering gently through the curtains. He’s ten.

His first reaction is joy, the warmth of growing up spreading down his chest and into his fingertips and he feels so big, so strong. He can finally be his mother’s big boy and can finally take care of her the way he’s always wanted to because his mother is definitely not getting younger. Then, as the idea ferments, he’s overcome with disappointment as he realizes - it’s the first birthday he’s celebrated without his father.

In a heat of the moment spurt of energy, he decides to head downstairs. His mother is in the living room listening to her radio when the stairs creak beneath his feet, and her head whips around to face him, and there’s the most beautiful smile he’s ever seen.

“Happy birthday, Tao-ah.”

His mother meets him at the foot of the stairs with a full-breasted hug and a kiss, and she’s teary-eyed and soft as she cups his face and stares at him for some time. “You’ve gotten so tall, Zitao.”

“Am I taller than you yet?”

She grins and kisses him on the forehead, “Almost there, almost there.”

He expects his yearly present, the one that his parents usually give him with his birthday breakfast, placed on the table in front of his plate and his juice. Yet when he settles himself in his spot, there is no wrapped gift for him to dive into. There is no present, no surprise, not even a new outfit. It’s disheartening, and he wonders if the weary depth in his mother’s eyes is symbolic of their lack of everything. He decides not to ask about it, because it’s been seven months since they’ve last seen their lights turn on, and just a few weeks ago his father had stopped coming home and bringing money in. They’re running out of food and running out of water, and Zitao’s anxiety is bubbling.

“I’m sorry that I don’t have a present for you this year,” his mother tells him softly, voice thick, and he doesn’t need to look over to tell that she’s crying and it’s evident that his mother is not at fault, never in a million years. “I wanted to get you a nice rain slicker, maybe some matching boots, too.”

“It’s okay, mom,” he tells her as she takes a seat across from him, and it’s distressing how exhausted and sunken-in her eyes look. “It’s okay.”

She offers him a weak little grin, but he can see through it. He can see how she’s falling apart at the seams, teetering on the verge of shattering. “Zitao, I’ve got to tell you something, okay?”

He blinks at her and plays with his toast, rips off a corner carefully and crumbles it between his fingertips. “Am I in trouble?”

“No, no, never,” she says, forcing a smile on her face, “but I need you to not be mad at me, okay?”

It’s a simple enough proposition, but there’s something really wrong with the way her voice wavers, and something ugly is welling up inside of him. “Okay.”

She reaches across the table for him, opens her palms as an invitation for him to lay his fingers along hers, as she holds him carefully and cautiously, “Zitao, something really bad has happened to daddy.”

He blinks. He knows exactly what that means; _daddy didn’t make it._ Yet the more he relays the idea to himself, the less it hurts, and the more he hates himself for not reacting. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry, Tao-ah,” she cries out as her eyes water. “I didn’t mean to keep it from you, but - I didn’t want to ruin your birthday. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

So that’s why daddy didn’t come home for his birthday, he thinks to himself. He knows deep down that he probably deserves to stew in the hot points of hell for not reacting, knows he is probably the most heartless person alive, but - but today is _his_ day, and today, he is ten years old. At ten years old, he feels grown up. “What happened?”

“The stockades broke,” she coos disheartedly. “Last week. They tore right through. The first people to go were the guards, like… like your dad.”

“Oh.”

“I understand if you hate me, Tao,” her voice drops to a whisper and he really hates seeing his mother cry so deeply. “I should have told you sooner, but - but I didn’t want to upset you. Forgive me, Tao-ah, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

He hugs his mother, stands up from his seat and walks around the table and wraps himself around her, because no matter what happens and no matter who they lose, they are going to survive this, Zitao is sure of it. No matter what it takes, Zitao is going to make sure his mother persists through this, and they can live alongside the outbreak together. His mother is his rock, and he has to be hers.

“It’s okay, mom. It’s okay.”

She calms after a few long moments, and Zitao decides that now would be as good a time as any to be honest with her because there’s not a thing in the world that kills him more than lying to his mother.

“Mom, I - can I tell you something?”

And she smiles, bright and white and wide, entirely unknowing of what Zitao has been hiding from her. “Anything, my flower. Anything.”

He’s not sure how he’s supposed to put it if there is a way to sugarcoat it. How is he supposed to explain that he could be responsible for his mother’s death?

“Mom, I - ” he starts, struggles, tries to force it out. Emotion is welling up deep inside because he’s frightened, terrified, absolutely petrified that his mother will hate him. What if she hates him? “I… I think I’m… one of them.”

His mother stiffens and searches his eyes, searching for any inkling of deception. He half-expects her to smack him, half-expects her to get angry and threaten him and yell at him for putting them at risk because God forbid an officer came to their door with one of their radar batons, they would both be dead. 

Instead - she cries, heavy and deep and pulls him into her neck, and he stumbles and wonders if this is supposed to be okay or if he’s supposed to be nervous. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “It’s my fault.”

He shakes his head, tries to reassure her that it’s not, because who can predict encephalitis? 

“I killed a cat, mom,” he whispers and grips at her back, fingers sliding along her corduroy blouse. “I - I fed on a cat, mom, I - I hate myself, why did I do that?”

“Shh, Tao, shh. It’s okay, it's okay. You're perfect the way you are.”

It’s very tender and very soft, and he’s not sure if this is a normal reaction or if he’s just simply too babied, but he’s so overwhelmingly glad that his mother understands that it just makes him cry more.

Soon, she dabs at her own eyes with the back of her knuckles and squeezes his hands, “Tao-ah, how about we go upstairs and paint, yeah? We can forget about all of this just for today, just today. We can go put on the radio and draw until supper, just you and me.”

That’s all it’s ever been and all it’s ever going to be, and it makes Zitao smile. _Just you and me._

That evening, his present is being sung to sleep by his mother, her fingers tinkling along his aunt’s old ukulele. She sings him an old ballad as he drifts off to sleep in his mother’s bed, and she holds his hand and kisses his forehead and tells him that she loves him, and it’s all he needs to slip away. 

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

He’s not sure how early it is but he startles awake and reaches over and shakes his mother because there are _sirens_. Loud and blaring, they shake the foundations of the house and his mother gathers him in her arms and pushes his fear away, and before he knows it, his mother is dressing him in his overcoat and telling him to keep quiet. He wants to ask what is happening, what the sirens mean, but his mother insists he keeps quiet and follows her outside.

It’s raining, he realizes, wet and cold and the air is frigid, seeping right through the lapels of his coat. It’s dark, the streetlights have long died out, and there’s an eerie orange glow overlooking one of the taller houses; is something burning?

“Mom, what’s going on?”

She takes his hand in hers and pulls him along, and he notices a few others on their cul de sac leaving their homes as well. Is there some kind of invasion? Did the gates break?

“We’re going to get help, Zitao.”

He lets her drag him down the street, practically yanking his arm right out of its socket and he wants to tell her to slow down but something is clearly wrong and she is very clearly afraid, and he wonders if there were infected in town. Were they on their street? Were they in his yard?

When they round the corner onto a straight road, they follow along in front of Sehun’s house and it’s then that he rips his hand from his mother’s grip. She whips around and yells at him to follow her, but no, how is he going to abandon someone that means as much to him as his mother does?

“I have to make sure Sehun is okay,” he says, and his mother’s hair is beginning to string from the rain, dark strands curtaining her eyes. 

“Tao, we _have to go_!” She exclaims, but he just can’t. Something doesn’t feel right about abandoning Sehun that way, what if he doesn’t get out in time?

In a flurry of action, he darts across the lawn and bangs on the front door of his friend’s house. He tries the knob, but it’s locked, and instead, resorts to frantically pressing the doorbell and knocking on the wood. He’s beginning to panic, throat beginning to close because Sehun is _not answering_ , the knocking is hollowing out by the second and Sehun is _not answering the door_.

“ _Tao-ah! You have to get out of there_!”

He begins to panic, begins to yank and pull and kick and cry and the doorknob is too wet, he can’t get a good enough grip to twist it. Why isn’t Sehun answering? 

“Sehun-ah!” He calls out and bangs his fists on the door, hoping diligently that if he pounds hard enough, the door will swing open and Sehun and his family will come out. 

But he doesn’t come out, he doesn’t answer, and there are lights approaching now, bright blue and red as his mother screams out for him, as she cries and wails and the sirens grow louder and the flashes grow brighter. He grows weak and releases the doorknob, little hands dangling by his side. It’s hopeless, isn’t it? Sehun isn’t going to make his big getaway with him like he promised, and they’re not going to outrun the virus together like he promised, are they?

He decides that he should give up because after all, what is there left? What is the point of continuing this charade if he’s only going to die anyway?

He falls back, rain boots splashing into small puddles on the crumbly sidewalk, and it’s only then that he realizes that the sirens and the lights have attracted less than to be desired.

It’s not until gunshots ring out that he glances over his shoulder and no longer sees his mother. He begins to scream and run, begins to call out for his mother because _where is my mother_? The officers raise their guns at him, yell at him to stay back, to stay put, but time and sound begin to blur out and fade into muted shades as his sense begins to leave him, as every last ounce of self-awareness seeps from his pores. 

It’s not until he realizes he’s in danger that someone is on top of him, _something_ is on top of him, and his body vibrates in harrowing, nauseating pain, as blood pools between his fingers and the need to heave begins to sear, that he feels himself slipping away and the very last thing he manages to hear, is his mother’s crying.

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

He’s being shaken awake by large, warm hands and he startles, sitting up in a kneejerk reaction as he takes in his surroundings. He’s in a room, tiny as it is with bare walls and a tiled ceiling. He’s sitting on a cot, bandaged up and wired like an outlet strip. It looks to be an infirmary, a lone plate of food sat on an aluminum folding tray next to where he lays.

Then, he remembers the touch of those hands. He glances up to see where the hands are connected, a very unfamiliar face in front of him. 

“You’re awake.”

It’s not a doctor like he would have expected in a place like this, not a nurse, not even a front-desk secretary. It’s a kid just like him, perhaps some years older, with his hands folded beneath his face as he tilts it to gaze at him curiously like he’s the only human he’s ever seen before.

“Who are you?” He snaps a little too briskly, and he frowns when he notices that his voice feels too aged, too mellow where it resonates low in his throat and he wonders, how long exactly has he been laid here?

The kid - the _male_ , he decides to go with, since this guy looks too old to be considered a child, but perhaps too young to be considered an adult - stares at him for a few more seconds, as the air begins to thicken and turn a little bit bizarre, before sitting back in his seat and folding his hands in his lap. He’s got curly brown hair and a weirdly crooked smile. “My name’s Jongdae. I volunteer here at the nursing department.”

He frowns and narrows his eyes at the guy, “Where’s my mom?”

It’s a little repugnant the way the guy gives him a confused look and shrugs because clearly, he must be talking out of his ass since nobody seems to know _anything_. “Who’s your mom?”

He breathes calmly for a moment before saying, “Huang Weilian.”

There’s a little bit of hope left in him that this Jongdae guy might suddenly realize who he is, that a lightbulb might go off and he might tell him that his mother is in the room next door, is waiting outside to see if her precious son is okay, but it seems to only make the guy even more bewildered. “There’s nobody here by that name,” he says, and Zitao wants to punch that annoyingly clueless look right off his face.

He forces himself to take a deep breath through the nose, because he doesn’t think that lashing out at someone while thoroughly wired is the best idea, so he collects himself for a moment. “What am I doing here? I want to see my mom, _where_ is my mom?”

“Shh,” Jongdae stands this time and ushers him to lay back on the pillow, “don’t strain yourself, you might bleed out.”

He freezes; _what?_

“What do you mean _bleed out_?” He asks quietly, sheer panic lacing his voice. 

He makes a move to ask Jongdae what he’s talking about, but the guy is coercing him into staying put so he can go get the doctor, and then his blood runs cold. Is he in a hospital? What in the world _happened_ to him? Worse, what happened to his mom?

There’s a long moment where he debates making a run for it, figuring that in the time it’s going to take for the doctor to show up, he can figure out how to detach himself from this weird machinery  and book it, yet - he has absolutely no medical knowledge at all, and knows nothing about being wired. What if they’re actually inside of him and under his skin? Would he bleed out by being irrational?

He doesn’t get to dwell on the thought very long because there’s a woman stepping into the room with a delicate knock on the framing, clipboard in hand. She’s dressed strangely for a doctor, he thinks to himself, not in the stereotypical crisp white overcoat and instead in a periwinkle blouse with buttons down the middle and tidy white slacks, ironed at the seams. 

“Ah, Zitao,” she says softly and offers him a beautifully kind grin. She’s a gorgeous woman, with an almond-shaped face and long, dyed-brown hair. “You probably don’t remember me since we just took you off the anesthesia a few hours ago. I’m Kimberly, but everyone around here calls me Dr. Lin.”

He simply listens when she talks and realizes a tad late that she does, in fact, speak the same language as him, and he wonders just how many people in this city speak Chinese. He keeps to himself as she flips up the front sheet and reads out his credentials, listens as she recites his name, his age, his height, his weight, his ethnicity, his - wait, what?

“Wait, what year is it?” He asks briskly, and she meets his eyes with a confused look.

She dutifully recites the year and exact date for him; _January thirteenth, 2007_. “Why?”

He blinks. He’s… fourteen? How long was he out? “No reason.”

“How are you feeling? Sluggish?” She gestures with her hands, a pen tucked between two knuckles. “...Hungry?”

His blood runs cold at the way she says _hungry_ , so calm and calculative like she’s looking right into him. He meets her eyes and gulps and every bit of knowledge is flashing across her eyes, and _of course_ , she knows. 

And of course, his shame must show, for she lets out a bubbly little laugh and reaches out to gently squeeze his shoulder, and guilt swirls in his stomach. “Don’t worry, Zitao, we specialize in treating hungries. You can camp as a row of tents here, sweetie.”

He frowns, “Where am I?”

Kimberly - or, Dr. Lin - sets down her clipboard and turns her attention to the monitors beside his cot, “You’re in the infirmary here at Sacrosanctum.”

 _Sacrosanctum_ , he thinks. He’s here, he’s at the testing facility. This is where his parents wanted to bring him. “Um, excuse me, Dr. Lin?” He asks gently, and she glances over at him.

“Yes?”

“Do you, um,” he starts a little awkwardly, fumbling over his words like his tongue is made of lead, “do you know if - if a Huang Weilian is here, too?”

The doctor gives him a furled look, thinking deeply before she tightens her smile and shakes her head, “Not that I know of, sorry. I know that a lady dropped you off with us before she fled and took off running.”

He blinks; his mother… abandoned him?

“Does anybody know why?” He asks softly, voice just above a whisper as his heart speeds, as his pulse thickens in his throat. 

She gives an agnostic shrug as she steps over to the side desk and types something in at a laptop there; he wonders why he hadn’t noticed the unwalled cubicle before, “Not sure. I was only a nurse at the time, but from what I heard, she refused to admit you to the sanction without her, but we have a strict minors-only policy.”

“Why?”

Dr. Lin laughs a little and tosses a glance over her shoulder, “You’re full of questions, aren’t you, Zitao?”

He blushes and averts his eyes, “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she continues. “Though, I’m not sure which answer you’d prefer. I can give you the good answer, or the bad answer. Or both.”

“What’s,” he pauses to swallow, throat suddenly dry, and he wishes they’d brought him a cup of water, “the good answer?”

“Well, the sanction is used as a refuge for the living infected to avoid police execution.”

He knows that. That’s what his mother and Sehun had always told him, that Sacro was a safe place for hungries to reside so that the officers couldn’t barge into their homes and shoot them down.

“So, what’s the bad answer?”

She faces him fully this time and tucks her hands into her pockets. She looks dejected, a smile on her lips but absolutely no happiness behind it. “In order to prevent governmental execution, we use the organization to run experimental procedures to see what kindles the virus and what hinders it, but sometimes things don’t always go as planned.”

His heart thumps.

“You kill them?”

The doctor sighs, “We don’t like to call it that, but we do what we can to try to find a cure, to try to find some kind of counteragent to help the body develop an immunity to the spread of the virus.”

“I’m guessing this means you’ve failed with every test subject,” he finishes for her, and the silence that follows only serves as the confirmation he didn’t need. “Considering, if you’d succeeded already, you wouldn’t have a reason to be telling me this.”

She offers him a weak little smile but it doesn’t help the way he feels. “I’m sorry, Zitao.”

“Is that why I’ve been asleep for _five_ fucking _years_?” He snaps at her as his pulse quickens, and she turns her eye. “What have you monsters been doing to me this whole time?”

“Zitao, we saved your life,” she responds cautiously, setting her clipboard down. “When you came to us, the virus was in its febrile state and would have killed you if we didn’t act quickly.”

What? He frowns, “What are you talking about?”

Dr. Lin sighs and sets her hands on her hips. “Let me break it down for you. You arrived at the sanction with the infection fresh in you. You were bitten.”

He blinks. He was… bitten? 

Oh.

So that’s what those bandages on his stomach were for.

“When?” he asks after a moment, gazing sadly at his gauzed body and trailing his fingers along the paper tape. “How did - when?”

“We don’t know, but we delivered anesthetic immediately and had to subdue your body so we could work on treating the infection.”

“So how am I not dead?”

She pauses this time, and the air begins to thicken. There’s something she’s not telling him, he can _feel it_. What is with everyone being so secretive around him?

“You didn’t respond to any of the treatments, but - you also didn’t respond to the virus itself.”

She says it carefully and pronounces each syllable individually as if she were talking to a toddler. The statement makes his heart drop, makes his stomach churn. That doesn’t make any sense, how could he not respond to the virus?

“So, does that mean you came up with some kind of cure or something?” 

This time, however, she shakes her head and kneels down to be at his eye level. “No, Zitao. It means you’re immune.”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

  
 

He tosses and turns on his cot.

_You’re gifted, Zitao! You could be the key to what we need to find a vaccine!_

No, he can’t be immune. He can’t be, that’s not _possible._

_We will need you to stay here for a few more months of testing, maybe - maybe a year? We could be onto something here._

He frowns. Why does he have to die just because there’s a _chance_ that it could be the key to a vaccine? There’s no proof, no solidified evidence that he would not die in vain. Why would he waste his life just to continue the cycle of taking all of these innocent lives?

The thought doesn’t sit right in his stomach. No, he shouldn’t think that way. What if what they’re saying is true? What if he really could be the key to saving mankind? 

But that doesn’t make sense - why is it _only him_ that is immune? If a hungry was injected with the infection from a non-hungry and showed no reaction, wouldn’t that mean every other hungry could be considered immune as well?

He turns onto his back; what about Sehun?

What if Sehun was bitten? Could Sehun be immune too, or would Sehun be dead?

The thought upsets him and he finds himself tearing up, and he abashedly shoves his face into the pillow. Sehun is okay. His mom is okay. They _have_ to be.

It’s not long into his thinking that there’s a soft knock at his door, and with a slow hand, he wraps his wires around his IV pole and languidly stands, feet slightly numb and wobbly from disuse. He takes his time stepping over to the door, realizing too late that he doesn’t have his full strength, and when he opens it, he expects to see a nurse coming to check on his drip levels, or even Dr. Lin - but instead it’s Jongdae with his hands behind his back.

“What are you doing here?” He asks around a yawn, eyelids heavy. “It’s like - four in the morning.”

Jongdae seems restless, shifty in his behavior like he’s either dying to tell a deep, dark secret or is about to pee his pants. “Can I come in?”

“You can’t tell me at the door? I’m supposed to be asleep.”

“I have to _show_ you.”

Jongdae seems urgent, anxious, and very persistent, and Zitao can already feel that he’s going to lose this battle. In a moment of lost resolve, he wheels his IV pole aside and lets Jongdae into the room. The boy closes the door behind him as Zitao walks back over to his cot, and pulls himself up a chair.

“Don’t you know I could get in trouble with you in my room this late?”

Jongdae doesn’t keep him waiting long, as he procures what was behind his back after a few seconds of sitting. It’s a sheet of paper, painted in small, blocky print and Zitao hopes he’s not going to ask him to read it. “I have to show you this.”

He watches and listens as Jongdae scoots himself closer and tilts the paper so Zitao can see it. It looks like a medical document, with his name and attributes at the very top. Underneath, it outlines what looks to be rows upon rows of test information, statistics, and chemical levels.

“I got this from the secretary’s desk,” he whispers, the shadow of a delighted smirk fleeting across his lips. “It’s your medical table, it’s where they’ve been recording everything they know about you for the past five years.”

He blinks at him. “How come I don’t remember anything? Was I really asleep for five years?”

Jongdae shakes his head, “No, they had you out for a few weeks each time they’d conduct an experiment, but they administer a mandatory memory wipe to every patient. Once you’re complete with your initialization and once they begin to plan out the surgeries to tamper with the virus, they let up on the dosage and you wake up.”

“So, I wasn’t asleep?” He frowns, and Jongdae shakes his head.

“You weren’t, but your brain was. That’s why I brought this here, I have to tell you something really important.”

He watches him for a few seconds, part of him expecting Jongdae to jump on top of him and rip his bandages away and stab him to death, but Jongdae seems to be lost as well, seems to be searching him for permission, as if he’s not sure if he should be doing something.

“Okay.”

It’s all Jongdae needs and he ushers Zitao closer with a hand, so the boy scoots a little as best he can in his current state and allows Jongdae to rest his elbows on the cot.

“Okay, so, you’re probably wondering what the fuck is going on in the first place,” Jongdae explains passively, and Zitao wants to snort because truthfully yeah, he’d love to know because he has no idea what is going on anymore. “You already know you’re - not like anybody else. They don’t… they don’t usually keep patients beyond a year. Most of the time, it’s only several months before they’re gone. The truth is - the sanction is a locally funded method of destroying the virus by purging the host.”

“I know,” he cuts in with a timid voice, and Jongdae just blinks at him.

“You know?”

He nods, “Dr. Lin told me. She told me I’m going to die here.”

The boy seems to process it for a long moment, tonguing at the rounding of his cheek and giving a little nod. “Did she tell you when you’re going to die?”

What? “No.”

“Do you want to know?”

He pauses, heart pounding. What kind of secrets are really hidden among these walls? He doesn’t answer, only gives a little curt nod, and Jongdae flips the paper around so he can see it fully this time. “Your surgery is scheduled for the fifteenth at eight a.m. See - it’s listed down here as a craniotomy.”

He swallows for a moment as tears well up in his eyes. Is he going to die _tomorrow_?

“Hey, don’t cry,” Jongdae rushes to say and presses a warm palm to his knee. “I came here to help you.”

“How?” Zitao sobs. “By fueling my anxiety?”

The brunette shakes his head, soothing him as he cries and coaxing him back down, and after a long pause he says, “I’m going to help you get out.”

“...What?”

“You heard me, Tao,” he says with a crooked smile, and it’s then that Zitao notices that the boy is missing some of his back molars. “Look, the reason they kept you so long is because something happened with your chromosomes that hasn’t happened with any other patient,” he explains, and Zitao simply stares at the black and white letters, simply scans as he breathes calmly. “See, the virus attacks the brain and shuts off access to chromosome eight and chromosome sixteen, which are responsible for things like genetic cancer and Parkinson’s disease. With you, the virus bypassed chromosome sixteen entirely and instead attacked the encoding proteins in chromosome eight. It says here that they did some scans on your brain and that the - the pathways from your nerves to your brain were coated in the mutated proteins, which in turn kept the virus at bay as it entered your bloodstream.”

He narrows his eyes at the sheet. Is he some kind of defect or something? “What are you trying to say?”

Jongdae licks over his bottom lip and glances up at him. “That - whatever happened to your genomes when the virus entered your body, is unlike anything that the sanction has ever seen. It’s not hungry-specific, they have no idea what it is and - they think that by surgically removing your brain, they’ll be able to figure out how the virus actually works and takes control of the nerves, and be able to formulate some kind of vaccine to help protect the body against the virus. You know, each stage of the virus affects the brain differently, like for example the first stage affects the frontal lobe, which is where you are; the second stage moves into the parietal lobe, where you stop being able to see, feel, and speak, and by the third stage, it’s reached the temporal lobe, where you lose your memory and hearing entirely.”

Zitao, however, is no more convinced than he was five minutes ago. “Jongdae, what are you telling me this for? I know they think I’m the cure, and I know that’s why they’re going to kill me.”

“No, Tao, I’m not done,” he holds up a hand, and Zitao shuts up. “We established that you could be the key, yes, but I’m helping you escape because trust me, this isn’t what you want. Look, there’s a huge medical group all the way across the country in Iqaluit, and I want you to leave this shitty little sanction and actually go somewhere they will have a higher chance of keeping you alive after the surgery.”

He frowns, “What’s the point, though? If I’m going to die, then I’m going to die.”

Jongdae sighs this time. “Tao, I found out through the nurses that one of the people that went to Iqaluit was a lady named Huang Weilian.”

This time, his heart drops.

His throat works as tears bubble hotly behind his eyes, as his stomach flips and his pulse batters the insides of his ribs. “Mom…”

“You have to get out of here, Tao,” he repeats. “I can’t come with you, but you need to go somewhere where they can actually properly assess you. I’d hate to see them waste what you’ve got because they’re under equipped and trust me, a run-down little shithole like this is not worth dying in.”

“Do you know if my mom is okay?” He blurts out, and Jongdae wavers a little bit. “She’s not infected, right?”

The boy purses his lips in thought and gives a half-hearted shrug, “As far as I know, they wouldn’t recruit infected across the country because they wouldn’t make it. The virus only takes a week.”

He could literally cry at how relieved he is; his mom is okay, and not only that, he knows where she is. “How do I do it?” He asks, and for the first time, he puts his trust in a complete stranger. 

Jongdae is quick onto his feet and he watches in shock as Jongdae instantly begins fumbling with the medical tape and the wires sunken into his skin. Jongdae is advertently gentle with him, instructing him to lift his hands and suck in deep breaths as he retracts each wire. The feeling is unlike anything he’s ever experienced, the sensation of hard plastic grinding on his bones and muscle tissue excessively nauseating. 

He bleeds a little, but the guy is quick to bandage him up with topical bandaids from the cabinet, and sooner rather than later, Zitao’s skin is in disarray, bruised and flourished gray and patched all over.

“Okay, you’re gonna follow me out the window, okay?” Jongdae whispers to him, and Zitao realizes this whole time that he should have kept his voice down since the entire facility is silent as night. “There are cameras in the hallways.”

He doesn’t see how it could possibly work, but sure enough, the window has a latch and a handle that turns the panels outwards, which opens up the glass and allows for outside closure. Jongdae helps him out of the window and helps cushion the fall from the window to the grass. It’s only several feet, but it feels like a mile.

Once he's down, his toes meet the cool, prickly grass, dewy and wet from an earlier rain and exquisitely soothing. It’s been five years since he’s felt the grass, he realizes; it’s been five years since he’s been outside.

“We can’t stay here,” Jongdae tells him quietly, and Zitao wants to ask why, but he realizes after a split second of wondering that the parking lot is _filled_ with police and patrol workers. 

“How do we get past them?”

“We go the other way,” Jongdae laughs. “See why we couldn’t go out the front door?”

The guy makes a joke out of it, but Zitao can’t stop thinking. What if he doesn’t survive out here on his own? He has no food, no water, and definitely no clothes. This hospital gown isn’t helping how absolutely blistering cold it is outside.

“Jongdae, I can’t stay out here like this,” he shivers and rubs at his arms fruitlessly. The brunette looks over and he watches as realization flashes across those eyes.

“Shit, uh - ” the guy stammers, and pulls him back behind the building. “Okay, I need you to trust me, okay?” Zitao nods because it’s all he can do is trust him. There isn’t anybody left for him to rely on, and the fact that he has to learn to grow up so suddenly is heartbreaking.

Jongdae instructs him that there is a series of small underground tunnels just over the hill that leads into the subway. Unfortunately, the brunette has no extra clothing or supplies to give him, but Jongdae helps air-draw the picture. He instructs him that once he finds the tunnels, deep inside the subway there will be a little walled-in area that Jongdae has been living in and that Zitao is welcome to stay there until the heat dies down.

Zitao wants to ask what heat, but the opportunity shatters as lights flash across their skin and loud voices begin to shout, and it becomes clear that they’ve been caught.

“Go, _now_! **_Run_**!”

He runs, unsteadily on staggering feet, as blood rushes to his throat and the wound on his abdomen throbs, pain frothing up his stomach and wow, that really fucking _hurts_ , and he’s sure if he looks down, he’d be bleeding. A shot rings off behind him as he ducks behind a tree, and his chest is beginning to tighten and his eyes are beginning to tear and he’s so afraid, frozen where he stands and mind desperately blank. It’s not worth it, he thinks. It’s not worth it, it’s not worth it.

There’s a shout behind him and it makes his heart leap, and he quickly darts over the hill and lands on the roundings of his knees, kneecaps sinking into the moist earth and his gown is growing pitifully dirty but no, he has to get up, has to keep going, has to keep trying, has to keep _running._

He begins to grow increasingly more frustrated because he cannot for the life of him find the entrance to these so-called tunnels, and he’s beginning to cry openly as he realizes that Jongdae could have so easily tricked him. He’s so naive, why would he put his life in the hands of a stranger like that?

Within moments, however, his foot sinks into an especially wet patch, and he watches as water leaks from the dirt and trails off somewhere, and sure enough, there’s a little dug-out tunnel wide enough for a single person to fit, covered over with years of moss and overgrowth. He’s definitely going to get ticks doing this, but he braves it and crawls in.

There’s deep blue light from somewhere inside the tunnel, as it is not entirely dark and the opening begins to taper wide until he’s looking into - sure enough - an abandoned subway, tracks overthrown with vines and concrete cracked and uprooted. The ceiling is in shambles, having long caved in on itself. Above the cracks, the moon is bright and white and illuminates the small passageway. 

To the left of where he is - there’s a little area, partially concealed with what looks like a makeshift tarp out of an old bedsheet. 

How does he know that he’ll be safe here, though? What is there about this lone section of the subway that is going to keep him hidden from the police? He can still hear them, he realizes. They’re still shouting outside, and he realizes that the beams from their flashlights are still flashing across the sky.

In a moment of desperation, he slinks out of the tunnel and shoves open the tarp. It’s a little resting area where someone was very clearly staying, in what looks to be an old storage closet. It’s not overly roomy, just big enough for someone to sprawl out across the floor, with a heaping pile of thin, worn blankets in the right corner and a wicker chest on the left. There are papers strewn around the chest and behind it, and there are food wrappers peeking out from underneath one of the blankets. Did Jongdae _really_ do all of this for him? Somehow, the idea doesn’t seem feasible. 

The first thing he does is search for something to wear. Surely if Jongdae left blankets and food for him, there must be some clothes as well, right?

As he roots, from among one of the blankets spills out a handful of old, tattered clothing, monochrome sweaters, and dirtied trousers. Is he even the same size as Jongdae?

He strips, shivering restlessly in the cold, huffing out little breaths so visible that he’d think he was an ice statue. There’s a pair of underwear left out - he’s not sure if he should trust it and put them on, because God knows who’s used them, but he doesn’t think the rub of denim on raw, sensitive skin would be very comfortable, so he pushes his pride aside and slides them up his hips. The jeans are loose, baggy in a way that leave for wiggle room, the sweater warm and fleeced inside. Nevertheless, the cold is too unforgiving, seeping right through the clothing and forcing him to burrow into the blankets. 

They’re growing closer, louder, footsteps audible. He supposes he should be okay, because it’s dark, and if he doesn’t make a sound, they won’t be able to find him. Right?

As he burrows backward into the wall, wrapped up tightly like a burrito as he shivers out the cold, he notices a pen placed on top of one of the sheets of paper closest to him. Picking it up, he realizes it’s a note. Did Jongdae write him a note?

He narrows his eyes, however, when he sees the date.

 

 

 

_October 12th, 1999_

 

 _To whoever finds this, I don’t have long. The other hunters have all been kidnapped, and I’m the only one left from my clan trying to wait out this rebellion. How long is it going to go on? I fled to the subways when my group disbanded; there’s nowhere else to go. I heard from a way’s away that there’s an organization that just opened up nearby that can heal the infection, but one has to wonder how much of a hoax something like that could be._  
   
I’d say I only have maybe three, four days at best left. Minseok told me that the organization takes in anybody who is sick, no matter how late. I wonder if it would be too late for me to go and see.  
   
I’m leaving everything I own here. Hopefully one day, someone will find this nook useful just the way I have. I may never return if the organization is a crock, but if one day I do, expect me to not return empty-handed.

 

_K.J.D._

 

 

 

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until there are droplets appearing on the paper. Had he imagined Jongdae being there this whole time? Was he so tired after five years of undisturbed rest that he actually hallucinated being led to safety by a stranger? What does it mean? 

He refuses to admit this is the same person because Jongdae isn’t _dead_ , he just saw him twenty minutes ago, this can’t be real. This has to be another hunter that Jongdae knew, or else this whole thing is a prank to fool Zitao because he’s still young and naive and Jongdae is older and definitely smarter.

He tucks the note away and breathes carefully into the blanket, the material reeking of must and paper shavings. He’s lost everything he’s ever known and it’s all his fault. How does he know Jongdae was even telling him the truth about his mother?

He doesn’t sleep; there’s no way he can risk falling asleep for even a moment only to get caught and be brought back to Sacro.

And then he remembers - his _necklace_. He’d taken it off and hidden it under his bed when his parents had been fighting one night, and he never managed to find the time to grab it before he was forced to run away. He decides that once this blows over and they stop looking for him, he has to make a run back home because he’s not going _anywhere_ without that necklace. Never.

 

 

 

 

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	2. Chapter 2

 

 

 

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I: Infected

(ĭn-fěkt'èd) _noun._

the state of having been contaminated with a pathogenic microorganism or agent.

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Hands above your head!”

He startles and jitters, shaky, frantic, as lights pour over him and he rips his mouth from the hare’s neck. Fuck, fuck, he’s been caught. They’re going to shoot him down, they’re going to _kill him._ What is he going to do?

It’s dark, very nearly too much so that he can’t make out the figure to discern _who_ it is, but he’s smart enough to know _what_ it is, judging on the chunky shape of their armor and the tactical light on whatever they’re holding. It’s an officer, and he’s out after curfew and out of sanctioned borders, which means it’s protocol to have him killed.

“Don’t hurt me,” he rasps out. “Please don’t hurt me, I - I’m just - ”

The figure steps closer, feet crackling upon the gravel as their light dims just the slightest, and Zitao fights to make out their face. “Name and age,” the person says, gruffly at that, as if hiding underneath a mask.

“Huang Zitao,” he says without falter. “Fifteen.”

The officer shifts a little bit, and he can hear clicking noises, and his heart speeds in his throat as he thinks about the fact that officers always have guns on them and judging by the sound, they’re loading theirs.

“I got a young boy along the outer circle,” the officer says, perhaps into a radio com on their uniform, and Zitao distinguishes that not only can he understand them well - which means that his English is definitely improving, undoubtedly unavoidable since he lives in such a country - but their voice sounds light and a little bit thick; a woman? “Fifteen, Asian, appears to be around one-seventy centimeters.”

There’s a long pause where Zitao stands awkwardly by himself, awaiting his demise in the darkness of the night, but it never comes and it feels strangely bittersweet. Rather than soothing his nerves, the tension and the wait makes his blood curdle and his pulse thicken. Is the officer playing some kind of game with him? He can hear some fuzzy noises, as if the officer is indeed using a radio com, and he begins to count every passing second in case they’re his last. One, then two, then three. T-minus ten seconds until he dies.

“Just a straggler,” the woman says. “No weapons, no supplies. No food.”

Deep within him, he only has half a mind to stand up and run away as fast as he can, faster than he’s ever gone in desperation for his own life, but he’s positive that the officer will definitely shoot him then. He has a feeling that her patience and self-restraint right now is not eternal.

“Understood.”

The tactical light dims, and Zitao can finally see her a little bit in the night sky. She’s young, shockingly so, a lady only in the eyes and not so much in her countenance.

“Up,” she commands, and he’s scrambling to his feet faster than he can think. Should he say something? Should he not make eye contact? Wait, does he still have blood on him? With a quick look down, he sees the large blotch of dark red seeped into the collar of his shirt. There’s no way she’s stupid enough to think nothing of it.

He shifts where he stands, bare feet cramping on the gravel, pebbling around the shriveled skin on the sides of his feet. He prefers to be barefoot when he’s not hiking and running the risk of splintering. While it helps to keep himself quiet and hidden from hunters, it also helps keep the infected off of his trail. If they can’t hear him, he can’t get caught.

The woman takes a few steps towards him, and he cannot help but take a step back, keeping distance between the two of them. She seems a little disheartened at that, eyes dulling. “What’s a hungry like you doin’ out here, son?” She asks, and Zitao wonders if it’s a trick, if it’s a game.

He doesn’t respond at first, keeping his lips pressed as he stands in a mess of his own shame and the hare’s blood, as he awaits the twist of fate to come and do away with him like every other hungry that has ever been shadowed in sin. “Feeding.”

She lets out a little snort of a laugh at that, “I can tell. I meant why is you out in the open when feeding like this? Don’t you know that hungries like to burrow? You’s gonna get yourself caught, boy.”

He frowns. So she doesn’t want to shoot him? Somehow, that doesn’t seem plausible; it’s the law to kill hungries because they dwindle the living population and spread the infection. “Oh.”

“I’m not here to kill you, kid,” she speaks up again, and takes another careful step forward but Zitao manages himself and holds his ground because she lowers her rifle as she does so. “I mean, I could. But word on the street is, that rehabilitation base back in Vancouver was raided by a group of infected after one of their hungries ran away, and that hungry just so happened to be immune to this virus, and so now the entire country has a monetary reward set for whoever catches them. That wouldn’t happen to be you, would it?”

She speaks in clipped tones, as if she’s toying with him, as if she’s expectant of a reaction. His heart begins to race and his stomach tightens as he tries to formulate some kind of lie or an excuse. He ends up keeping shut to save himself the pain of when the shot comes, because he doubts that she’d recognize his face from the sanctum. “No.”

She nods a little, and takes the beat of silence to push back the transparent guard on her helmet. “My name’s Evelyn. District Sergeant. What’s a kid like you doin’ all the way out here in Abbotsford, boy?”

He swallows and curves his spine, tilting his head away from the moonlight. “Please don’t hurt me.” In this moment, he bares his very soul to her, as he is no more than a straggler with not a pair of shoes to his name nor any source of protection other than his own toxic blood. She is in every position to have him executed because he is the scorn of the human race, the thorn in everybody’s side. He does not deserve to breathe the same air as those around him with healthy blood and healthy lives do.

“I ain’t gonna hurt you,” she says soothingly in her smooth, robust voice. “Would it make you feel better if I put my gun down?”

She does as said without waiting for a response, unlatching the strap from her vest and slinging it over her head, and she wraps both hands around its long body and gingerly lowers it to the ground. As she stands, her hands are delicately held out in front of her, palms exposed. “I ain’t gonna hurt you,” she repeats. “I just wanna help.”

He glances down at the lone gun prostrate across the stones, and he swallows the urge to lunge for it. She’s closer to it than he is, and probably faster reflexively, too.

“Captivating, ain’t she?” She smiles at him, and Zitao looks up at her. “She’s a Mossberg 590A1. Forty-seven centimeters, twelve gauge. Armies use ‘em to protect state lines. Would you like to touch it?”

He blinks at her. Touch it? Why would he get anywhere near that thing?

She seems, however, to notice his apprehension about the request, and she raises her hands defensively and takes several steps away from the weapon. “Go ahead, I promise I won’t snag it.”

She recoils so calmly despite the fact that he holds much more of a threat than her bullets do. Is she not afraid of him? Why?

He takes careful steps forward, toes stretching over each bump and each valley in the stones, gentle tinkling noises pittering around him as the stones fall out of the way, and he looks up at her. He searches her face for any sign of deception, any sign of a warning of action. It’s odd, he thinks, because she seems so _friendly_ and everyone has seemed too friendly to him lately. Everybody has been so nice to him, from the doctor to Jongdae and now, Sergeant Evelyn. Why are they being so nice?

He chews on the flaked skin along his bottom lip and kneels down. The polish on the gun shines in the blued moonlight, cool cobalt-black and beautifully silver. He trails careful fingers along the widened ridge, the black metal coming to an abrupt stop as the back is patched over with some kind of slightly-worn burlap, the fabric rough, stiff, and tightly stitched. It seems to be glued on exquisitely, not a frayed edge to be seen.

“We patch them over if they get damaged,” she says above him, and his heart leaps into his throat in sudden fright. “No sense in throwing away a perfectly good gun just ‘cause the stock’s a little nicked.”

He wonders how guns as big and as stocky as these could get damaged enough to need patching. Surely it’s not like they use the butt as a bludgeon, right? The stock is heavy, unforgiving and hard with a slight hollow press to the nicked spots. He presses delicate fingertips to its surface to test the resiliency, and it’s as hard as can be, as if it were carved wood.

“It’s the highest caliber we are allowed to carry,” she adds. “We need it to be powerful enough to take out the infected, since lower caliber guns don’t do as good of a job and require more shots."

She kneels down this time, and he immediately flies back and falls onto his bum upon the stones, the fabric across his rear ruching under the impact.

“Let me tell you something, Zitao,” her voice is lower this time, more husky and not quite as forward. “Ever since my very first day of criminal training, I always believed that a man is only as good as his artillery. And you, little boy, are not yet a man when you's not equipped even the slightest. What makes you think you’ll survive another five years out here with no weapons?”

He stays silent for a long moment before shrugging, keeping his eyes trained on the rocks beneath him. He’s never thought much about that, too driven with his own hunger and desire to find his mother. He supposes that it does make sense, because what is going to happen if he gets ambushed? He only has one mouth and can only take one human at a time.

Evelyn presses her lips together beside him, and a small grin stretches across her face as if she knows something. “Just by chance, are you hungry? For food, I mean.”

He looks up at her in confusion and takes stock. Is he hungry? He just fed but his stomach doesn’t feel any fuller, although the crawling thirst bubbling beneath his skin has subsided. Yeah, he decides; he’s hungry.

With just a minimal pause, she stands, towering as she looms over him in the nighttime light. “I got the fellas down at the station making some rice soup. Nice and spicy, will open your sinuses right up. You want some?”

He furrows his eyebrows because how the hell did she go from holding him at gunpoint to inviting him for food? Something about this feels extremely sketchy and something doesn’t feel right. This seems too planned, too kind, and overall too humane. Yet still, something about Sergeant Evelyn feels trustworthy, and he wonders if it’s simply because she’s a woman and her mannerisms and attitude remind him of his mother. Regardless, he does stand and he does agree, because he’s not sure when the next time he’ll ever have a homemade, hot meal will be.

She bends to pick her gun back up, and his heart skips a beat as the thought that this could be a trick crosses his mind, but she merely slings it over her back and affixes the strap across her breast, and her aura is suddenly warm and welcome.

“Well, it’s this way, kid. Come on, now, don’t want it to get cold.”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

Sergeant Evelyn guides him along their path as she brings him back a little ways from where he came, over the trail of larger rocks and down the creek. He can see some buildings in the near distance with warm, yellow lights pouring through square windows, some having a little inkling of the glow outside their front door on a mantled lantern. In the chill of the midnight dew, she’d reached into her knapsack at one point, slung over her back just below the shotgun sling, and procured him a military-grade anxiety blanket to keep around him. He’d wanted to ask her what it was, but she was always quicker than him on the draw, always answering his questions before he could formulate them into words. _It’s to help with mistreated animals during rescues, usually_ , she tells him. _It’s made of finely-stitched wool so it comforts and warms like a mother’s embrace._ The sentiment makes him a little nauseous, because he doesn’t think anything could compare to a mother’s embrace.

She’s very gentle in her behaviour, he thinks while wrapping the blanket around his shoulders and softening into the immediate warmth. It’s chilly tonight.

When they approach a building that’s on the outskirts of the rest, a thick black stripe painted across the outside, she stops him and turns on her heel to face him.

“Now, I got some conditions I need you to follow, kid,” she tells him, and he nods in compliance because anything sounds good as long as he can have something hot to eat and a warm bed to sleep in. “One, don’t talk to the other officers. They’ll try to talk to you, but you just keep your trap shut. Two, don’t tell them you’re a hungry. They’ll shoot you dead whether you keep to yourself or not. Three, don’t tell them your name.”

He frowns at the last one. Why would his name be important?

“Oh, and four,” she says after turning over her shoulder to head back. This time, she lowers her knapsack again and kneels down as she rifles through it. After just a moment, she procures a pair of clothes, dark gray and navy blends that look a lot like bedclothes, and she hands them to him. “You need to change your clothes. The stain kinda gives you away. Oh, and I got some creek water you can use to shower real quick and get it off your skin, too.”

He wonders for just a second, before it clicks and his eyes trail down to his shirt. Oh yeah, he’d forgotten he was soaked in blood.

She directs him to go change beside the trees and that she’ll turn away for his comfort, and once he’s as bare as can be save for the allegorical pendant around his neck where his flower lays against his heart, he takes the canteen and pours just a little bit of water into his palm before running it up his underarms and across his breast, scrubbing away the pinked stain. When he’s done, he feels damp and he shivers relentlessly in the cold, but he knows that it doesn’t matter. His survival is the most important thing, and if that means showering out in the blistering night, then so be it.

He picks up his soiled clothes and debates giving them to the Sergeant, but he supposes that they would be of no real use to her, so he tosses them behind himself into the trees, long gone. When he steps back over to the Sergeant, she gives him a quick look-over and smiles.

“You look better,” she says with her hands on her artillery belt. “You look human.”

He can tell the compliment is supposed to make him feel good, but it makes him feel guilty for being an infected. He’s not technically human, she’s right, and he’s what is wrong in the world right now. “Sorry.”

She simply shakes her head and waves her hand for him to follow her. “Don’t be. Sometimes all you can do when you’ve got nothing else is to pretend. And I like your necklace, by the way.”

His cheeks pink at the adage and he realizes that perhaps she does know more than he realizes. Perhaps she’s been in this situation before, or perhaps she’s lost someone she loved to this epidemic. Perhaps she’s been exactly where he is right now, lost and completely alone with not even a knife to protect himself with. He wonders briefly if she’s a hungry, but then again he realizes that they probably would not let a hungry fight alongside military personnel.

She brings him to the front of the white building and holds her palm out flat, keeping him stationary as she meets his eye, voice hushed and breaths clouding around her lips in the cold, “Remember what I said, kid. Not a word unless it’s from me. Got it?”

He nods, wrings his hands in the thickness of the blanket just a little tighter, and steps out of the way as she turns the knob and opens the door inward. She goes first, rightfully so in the sense that his body is much more lissom and willowy than hers, and should open fire ring out, she would be able to take the brunt of the hits.

The interior is unusually cordial, with temperate orange candles and an arranged row of oil lanterns atop a counter strip in the far corner. Beside the lanterns on the floor are gallons upon gallons of tempered oil and matchboxes stacked into piles, along with heaps of what seem to be white candles, individually wrapped and packed into massive cardboard boxes. Jeez, they must have really been saving up for this apocalypse, haven’t they? Then again, it is the military, he realizes. The military and the judicial services seem like they would get first grabs at survival rations, whether it be food or sources of light.

At a rectangular table in the center of the room are two men, each bulked up with duplicate gear, belts loaded with stray handguns and what looks like their wallets and cell phone holsters, boots laced up to the knee with platform soles and knuckles scrape from wear.

“Welcome back,” one of the men says, the one seated on the left with grayed eyes and shaved blonde hair. His face is stout, squared at the jaw with unmistakably caucasian features. “Who’s your little friend?”

The other man, with a darker complexion and darker irises, hair long and dark and curled along the strands where it’s tied up and back out of his face, sets the playing cards in his hand down onto the table and reaches for his canteen. “This the straggler you phoned us about?”

Evelyn sets her knapsack down at the foot of the table and slings her gun across the back of an empty chair, “That’d be the one. Caught him just on the outskirts of Kilgard; woulda nearly froze to death if I hadn’t done something.”

In this lighting, he can see Evelyn thoroughly for her own beauty; her skin is dark, warm, and her hair curls into little waves, tied tight into a bun just below her crown. Her eyes are pretty and brown, soft freckles dusting her nose which is petite and undefined. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think she were merely a teenager and not a military official. She’s beautiful, he thinks; so naturally radiant.

As she seats herself at the table facing away from him and picks up a few cards from a stack in the center, he stands awkwardly in the entrance and loosens his hold on the blanket. Should he say something? No, Evelyn specifically told him not to speak unless spoken to. Should he do something? Should he seat himself? No, that would be rude, wouldn’t it? That’s poor manners.

Then - “Here, kid.”

She pats on the seat directly beside her and tosses him a soft look over her shoulder, and he can feel the heat of the men’s eyes on him, as well, as he huddles towards the chair and seats himself on it.

The blonde one lets out an airy little laugh that jerks his whole body, “What, you kiddin’ me? You bring us a little boy?”

The Sergeant gives the man a look and says, “He’s a teenager, and he’s starving. You _know_ how vital it is to maintain survivors, Kenneth.”

“So why bring him here?” The other man says. “Let him figure it out on his own, you know, toughen up his skin and learn to fight for his own food.”

“He’s just a kid, how is he supposed to know how to kill if nobody shows him?”

“Simple,” he tells her with a laugh. “Give him a gun, and let him go nuts.”

“ _No_ ,” she interjects. “You know we can’t do that without attracting a swarm, are you out of your mind?”

“What?” The blonde one - Kenneth, right? - slumps in his seat and gives her a dry look. “Why not? Give him some experience with real fear.”

“Do you want me to dispatch you, officer?” Evelyn says darkly, and his timid eyes trail away back to his playing cards. “I will train him, and neither if you will have any say in it. Do I make myself clear?”

“Clear, Serge,” they say in unison.

“Jared,” she says, and her voice has risen in tone so much that it makes Zitao nearly jump out of his skin beside her. The dark-haired officer gives her a pointed look, a single eyebrow raised, blistered fingers tracing the backs of the cards. “Go get him a bowl.”

The officer does not, in fact, disagree, and rather scoots his chair back and stands from his seat on heavy legs. He’s a much thicker build than the blonde officer, body broad and presence austere. Zitao watches silently as the man digs through a cupboard and procures a potted bowl with a set of wooden cutlery, and he wonders just how _long_ they’ve been without salvation. Is aluminum silverware too high-maintenance?

He remains attentive as he watches the man dip a large spoon into the pot atop the stove, and watches as he pours one spoonful, then two, into the bowl.

The officer comes back and places the bowl in front of him along with a spoon and a fork; it looks hot, hearty in color, and he nearly cries with how fulfilling it smells. He breathes in deeply, indulging his senses flagrantly, and he makes eye contact with the man as he asks, “D’you want a drink?”

Zitao just blinks at him, throat working, as he fumbles over what to do. Is he allowed to speak? Evelyn told him not to speak to them no matter what. Seemingly over-attentive today, Evelyn nudges him gently with her elbow and he hears a flitting whisper next to his ear: “Say _yes, please._ ”

He swallows and nods his head, “Yes, please.”

The man turns back around and opens what looks like a pint fridge, procuring a round canteen and a shiny drinking glass. Zitao’s lips part as he watches in awe, as the man pours the water into the glass and it immediately begins to crystallize inside the cup.

Evelyn taps him, then, and she gives a half-hearted wave of the hand, “We keep the cups frozen so when we bring in water, we can have it perfectly ice cold with a nice, hot meal. Water goes too quickly to keep in bulk, so we don’t have time to freeze it and wait to drink it.”

He nods and picks up his spoon and dips into his soup. He sees what looks like chunks of meat, perhaps chicken or pork, and little strips of julienned peppers, dark red in color. When he tastes it, he coughs out of reflex and drops his spoon, and Evelyn’s hand begins patting his back. It’s spicy and it burns his lips, but it’s a good spice, and it doesn’t berate the back of his throat.

“Do you not like it?” She asks, and her voice is much softer now, almost vulnerable. He shakes his head because it’s good, it really is, it’s just that he’s only ever eaten breads and wild fruits and human blood since captivity. “It’s ‘cause it’s canned, ain’t it?”

“It’s good,” he says hoarsely and looks up at her with a gentle smile. “Thank you.”

“He finally talks,” Kenneth laughs, and Zitao instantly shrinks. “What, cat got your tongue?”

“ _Kenneth_ ,” Evelyn warns. “What did I say?”

There’s an ugly feeling swirling inside of him as the officers pick on him, and he feels more vulnerable than he ever has. They are all strapped with guns, are all fully-prepared to kill him at any given moment, and although Evelyn seems sincere with the way she babies him, he’s wary that it’s a trap. What if they’re pampering him specifically aiming to have him lower his defenses? What if they’re working with Sacrosanctum? What if they do know who he is?

Shamefully, he stuffs another mouthful into him and chews it carefully. What if they poisoned his food? What if the water isn’t actually water, and it’s some concoction of illegal chemicals?

No, people couldn’t actually be _that_ cruel to a fifteen-year-old, right?

He slides his hands even further out of the blanket and reaches out for the glass, and brings it to his lips. It’s cold, slightly dry, and tastes predictably like water. It cools his mouth after the hot soup, but it doesn’t mask the flavor or the spice. He ladles another spoonful of the food and sips a bit of the broth this time. He can feel the warmth of it settle in his stomach and it leaves him with a distant sense of comfort.

Evelyn and the men leave him alone as they return to their card game, and he continues eating his food. Truthfully, he’s starving and wants to dig in and fill his stomach, but he’s not sure how much he’d be allowed to have and he’d like to cherish the taste of it while he can. True to her word, Evelyn diverts attention from him every time he puts his spoon down to reach for his drink, and they seize the opportunity to flood him with questions. They say _where are you from_ and _why do you live here_ and _are you Japanese_ with added snickers in there, and he wonders just when he became such a space case enough to be thought of as a gallery piece. He wonders what kind of kick they get out of being relentlessly prejudiced to innocent people.

As he sets his spoon back into his empty bowl and settles against the chair, heavy and full and inexplicably sleepy, he wonders if they’d let him sleep there for the night, and in a distant crevice of his mind, he deeply hopes that they won’t kill him in his sleep.

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

Evelyn cleans up his dishes for him and helps divert the attention from him, as well, and while the blooming anxiety is only thickening by the second, she is wholly attentive to his needs and leaves nothing unanswered. Evelyn is the one to excuse him from the table, and when the men begin to bitch and complain that Zitao is taking too much space, she smacks them on the backs of their heads as repercussion, and the action makes Zitao laugh a little.

She brings him past the dining area and towards a cornered hallway with nondescript white-painted doors.

“These are the bedrooms,” she explains as she lifts her hand halfheartedly in explanation. “Sorry they’re not anything - you know, world-class. It’s all we got.”

He glances up at her for confirmation before reaching out and carefully opening the door in front of him. It’s lit inside with a warm yellow candle on top of a little wooden table, which is lined with ammunition and bandages and two canteens of water.

“We have more blankets in the closet over here,” she lets herself into the room and steps past the bed to head to the right side of the room. Along the right wall is a narrow door, painted over in white, with a bronzed knob. Beside the door there appears to be a wall-mounted candleholder and beneath that, a key hook. “And over on the other side is the bathroom, water buckets and all. You’re welcome to shower, we have soap underneath the sink. It’s not anything great ‘cause we had to make it ourselves, but it’s all we got. And the toilet does actually flush, we re-piped it so we can fill it ourselves and have it flush onto the ground outside instead of the sewers.”

He steps further into the room and examines it with curious eyes. The stark white paint makes it feel strangely lonely, quite cold, and it heavily resembles something medical and frightening. It makes him sad, actually.

“Do you,” he asks softly and turns back to face her, “do you, um - have a radio? Or some music?”

She smiles and exhales through her nose, “You want somethin’ to listen to?”

He nods, and she steps backward towards the door, “Alright, I’ll bring you something.”

Zitao knows not to expect highly, because it’s very rare to find anybody with electrical power and even more rare to find people with working televisions. He knows he shouldn’t expect them to have a whole hospitality package for him. He’s grateful enough to have been fed a home-cooked meal at this point.

He checks out the furniture while Evelyn has stepped out. The bed is resemblant of a medical cot, and is neatly tucked with white sheets and two white pillows. He supposes that the blanket around his body is for him to also sleep with.

When he opens the bathroom door to check out the en-suite, he struggles for a few seconds to find the light switch in the darkness. When the light flickers on, it bathes the room in a dimmed golden glow and the light sparkles on the aluminum fixtures. The toilet is set in beside the stall sink and the shower is a glass-doored full shower along the wall, one that he assumes doesn’t work and perhaps is for drainage only. There’s a small pantry beside the toilet that he assumes is a towel closet, and perhaps toilet paper, and upon further inspection, he discovers gallons of water stocked on the bottom shelves - _bathing water._

When Evelyn comes back, she knocks on the bathroom door-frame and he nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Sorry,” she apologizes for frightening him. “I brought you a battery radio and some CDs. I'idn't know what kind of stuff you were into, so I just grabbed a little o' everything.”

He blinks. “You still have CDs?”

“Had 'em stored away in my old wrangler,” she says with a laugh. “After the rebellion started, I headed back to my old house on duty and raided my house for memories.”

He swallows and looks down; oh how he wishes he would be able to touch and feel his memories again, just one more time.

“Is everything okay, kid?” She asks, and he realizes he’s moping where he sits on the corner of his bed. “You seem like you’ve got somethin’ on your mind.”

He sighs because how can he possibly not have a lot on his mind? Truthfully, he’s not had a full night’s sleep since the night his mother took him to the sanctum. Aside from his coma, he’s not sure when the last time he’s ever felt well-rested was. Sleep has not been a friend of his since he was little, constantly plagued with seraphic visions of his mother and her archangelic appearance, so different from when he was little and was not able to process details, yet so familiar and warm. When he awakes every time, the stickiness of salt on his skin from tears lingers on the corners of his eyes and he swims in a pool of self-hatred and regret for a solid hour each morning.

“It’s just,” he mumbles under his breath and begins to pill at the sheet. While he’s beginning to speak, Evelyn rests her weight against the wall and her boots squeak with the movement. “My mom abandoned me when I was ten, and I haven’t… seen her since.”

Sadness and pity wash over Evelyn’s face as the sentence settles in her mind. “I’m so sorry.”

He wants to be impressed by how stoic she sounds, how immobile her behavior is and how well-trained she very clearly is, so finely-tuned to not react to human emotions in the face of catastrophe. He envies her, truthfully. He wishes he had her immense strength and her lack of wariness.

“I don’t know why she left me,” he tells her guiltily, “but people told me that she went to Iqaluit all the way across the continent. That’s so far, Sergeant, that’s _so far_ and planes don’t work anymore.”

She crosses her arms where she leans and says, “Is that where you was trying to go? Is that why you was alone out there?”

He nods because the idea of it is preposterous and entirely unprecedented, and a tenderfoot as young as he should be dead already, should be huddled away in a survivor base with a massive group of other humans, living, breathing, _thriving_. He should not be running for his life, but rather should be succumbing to it and giving up. After all, he’s the reason that humans are going to go extinct.

“Yeah,” he opts for with a dry throat. “I just… I want to ask her why she did it, why she couldn’t take me with her. I just want to believe that she doesn’t hate me.”

“I don’t think your mother could ever hate you, kid,” she says softly in that warm tone of hers, and it puts him a little more at ease. “I mean, I'on’t know her personally, but for her to bring you somewhere safe and put herself in harm’s way for it, she must love you very much.”

She’s probably right, because it truly was a desperate situation. He knows he very well could have died, and he knows that she legally would not be allowed near her infected son. The scar from the bite on his abdomen feels all too obvious beneath his shirt.

“She was very kind,” he says. “Very patient.”

“But you didn’t get to tell her how much you loved her, is that it?”

His shoulders slump, and she makes a noncommittal noise.

“How long have you been away from her?”

“Six years this summer,” he says without looking up. “I turn sixteen in May.”

She chuckles and shakes her head, and he can’t resist looking up. She’s so beautiful when she smiles, so controlled and so motherly. “Look at you, almost sixteen and not a penny to your name. What was you gonna do without any food?”

He shrugs, “Hunt?”

Evelyn shakes her head, and it’s just then that she lifts her weight off of the wall and takes slow steps over to him, almost sluggish, until she settles herself down next to him on the cot. “You know, I meant what I said. That a man is only as good as his artillery? I meant what I said. I see a lot of potential in you, kid, a lot of fight. You’re a sleeping tiger just waiting to be unleashed.”

He flushes, not knowing exactly how to respond, “Thank you, I guess.”

She sighs beside him, and he wonders if he’s upset her somehow, “I also need to be completely honest with you now, boy. You know, back in the city, I really was gonna kill you. I knew what you was the second I laid my tactical beam on you.”

He freezes, eyes widening and heart pounding, as he slowly meets her eye. She’s looking at him with a very calculative gaze, something very grayed-out and claustrophobic.

“I knew you was a hungry the whole time, kid,” she finishes, and he wants to scream and run away for his life - but she doesn’t sound angry. In fact, she sounds dejected and lonely, nearly disappointed. “And I knew you was the Sacro runaway the entire time.”

He shivers. “Oh.”

“They treated you like a miracle,” she explains coldly. “You was the talk of the town while you was asleep. Kept you in a coma for three and a half years. Soon enough, word spread from the coast and made it’s way to the suburbs, and everyone on east end knew your name. Why’d you think I told you not to tell the other guards who you were? Why’d you think I told you they’d shoot you?”

His heart races against his chest, and he’s almost positive she can hear it in the silence between them. This was a trick, _he knew it_. These people have been playing with him this entire time.

“You lied to me,” he mumbles without meeting her eye.

“I did,” she agrees pointedly. “I lied because I wanted to help you.”

He frowns; what?

“Look, kid,” she begins explaining to him, face to face in their honesty. “There’s nothing I can gain from killing you. Hell, I can’t even be sure if everyone’s right when they say you’re this magical cure that’s going to save us all from what’s out there, but what I do know is that you deserve to breathe our air more than we ourselves do. You’ve fought tooth and nail to stay alive because the virus inside of you is extremely complex, and we’re lucky if the hungries we find don’t kill themselves first. I want to help you because I want you to help us.”

He swallows because he’s still absolutely petrified and convinced this is a set-up. “But… why?”

Evelyn just shakes her head, and then there’s a hand patting him on the back, warm, soft, and helplessly maternal. “Because I had a son just like you, Zitao. I had a hungry for a son, just like you.”

“What do you mean _had_?”

She smiles bitterly and says, “He was a great kid. He played football, had good grades, and was his mama’s little treasure. But sure enough when he was ten - he turned, and we was runnin’ from fate ever since. We tried adapting to it, tried doing what we could to find his meals and keep them alive, but his hunger was too insatiable. He’d go into these… _episodes_ when he was feeding, where his conscience wasn’t tappable and… he ended up killin' his little sister.”

His jaw drops and a tear flits down his right cheek, as his heart breaks in two and his body floods cold, “Oh my God.”

“Soon after her funeral, you can probably guess how he died,” she says with a weak little smile, so trying and frail. “He was so riddled with guilt, he refused to talk to me or his father. Some few weeks later, he jumped off a bridge while we was asleep.”

“I’m so sorry,” he blurts out quietly and shoves his knuckle into his mouth, fighting the urge to burst out into spontaneous tears. “I’m - I’m sorry.”

Yet Evelyn just shakes her head, just rubs her thumb softly against his back, “My husband never let me live it down. He always blamed me for the deaths of our children, like I could have prevented it by not getting sick during my pregnancy. Later on, he shot himself in the head and left me all alone with the weight of all three lyin' on my back. I helped you back in the city because I don’t want to lose another good thing. I lost really everything I ever had, but for you to be able to travel safely and find a cure within yourself to save all of us - that would make me prouder than anything in the world, Zitao.”

It’s not until he sniffles involuntarily that he realizes he’s failed at holding back and is now crying openly, and that Evelyn’s arm has wrapped itself around his shoulders. He’s not sure why, but he’s suddenly enraptured and overcome in the desire to protect this woman and assist her through all of her hardships. “What do I do, Sergeant?”

After a moment of soft crying and sniffling, she stands from the bed and walks over to the bedside dresser. In one of the bottom drawers, she procures what looks like a folded paper and - supplies?

“You's gonna go cross-country,” she says with her back to him.

She returns with the items in her hands and sets them down on the bed next to him. When she unfolds the paper, long and wide, he realizes that it’s actually a map, some of the cities near their area marked with red _x_ ’s. Beside the map, she places what seem to be a plastic baggy of rolls of bandages and another baggy of just white tubes, which he assumes are topical creams. “Dunno if you've ever seen a map before but if you haven't, this is a map of the whole country,” she gestures as she stretches it out and points to a blue dot over Vancouver. “We’s right over here, just a little east of the coast. I think your best bet for survival, kid, is to head around the bay to the Iqaluit medical base. Biggest one in the whole country, absolutely massive and they use it right now as a shelter. It's boarded up for miles, nothing gets in and nothing gets out. It's not safe for you here, kid, you gotta go somewhere nobody is going to know you.”

He frowns, “But Iqaluit is too far to get there by myself.”

“It's the only choice you have, kid,” she says. “Look, the whole journey will take you anywhere from a year to two years depending on how many stops you make, and you should be fine on foot until you reach Frobisher Bay - considerin' it’s so long, I wouldn’t recommend wrapping upwards and around, so you might have to find a boat. They'll actually give you a steady place to live unlike anything out here, kid, trust me.”

After some thought, he sighs, “Okay.”

Evelyn grins at him, “So your best bet would probably traveling directly northeast to Winnipeg and curve north towards Yellowknife, but it's gonna get cold so you might have to rob and kill to get yourself a jacket. I'd give you one but we actually don't have anymore, only blankets.”

“Okay.”

“After that,” she drags her finger along the paper and stops on the patches of land as they break off into the sea, “You cross here over into the east. Remember, it's going to be extremely cold. After that, you cross the bay and head east into Iqaluit and you're golden.”

It sounds simple enough but he knows the weather conditions are really going to fuck him over, but he supposes it's the only option he's really got. Besides, she seems to have drawn out the preferred path with a red marker.

He nods, and she folds up the map and hands it to him. He takes it and after a second of wondering where to put it, he sets it aside on the nightstand.

“Now, I got some supplies I want to give you, and I got some guns you can have,” she explains beside him. “Maybe tomorrow when the guys are on their daytime watch, I can take you out and teach you how to shoot, yeah? Would you like that?”

He nods, and she gives him a little pat on the head. “I’ll wake you up at ten a.m. Get some rest, kiddo. And remember, always keep your head up because someone out there loves you.”

She leaves him like that, alone on the pristine white cot all muddled in his blue feelings, the yellow glow of the night lamp his only consolation and the knowledge that someone cares that he’s alive his only salvation.

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

True to her word, Evelyn wakes him in the late morning, the sun bright and blindingly yellow, and she’s even got a nice hot bowl of chicken soup ready for him on the table.

“Sorry it’s not Cheerios and milk,” she says. “We ain’t seen milk in over ten years.”

He laughs at her quippy humor and digs in, as anything other than wild berries and warm, salty blood would be marvelous on an empty stomach.

“How was your bed?”

He swallows his mouthful and holds up his thumb. “Good.”

She grins and continues washing the dishes in the counter-top basin, faucet-less and what seems to be a container of soap rather than a bottle, nary a sponge nor a washcloth. “Was it warm enough for you? We have extra blankets in the linen closet.”

“It was fine, thank you.”

She thanks him for his gratitude and cleans up for him when he’s all finished. He has a glass of cold water and she lets him ask for a refill, before she heads into one of the back rooms and returns with her backpack. It’s bulkier than last night and looks tremendously heavy.

“You’s gonna like this,” she tells him reassuringly, and she heaves the backpack onto the table next to him. It sounds heavy and thunks loud and resonant when it hits the table. “And don’t worry, I’ll teach you all you need to know.”

From her backside, she lifts a long, seemingly huge black gun with bulked cartridges and a thick handle. “Now, I know this might be big for you, but I want you to hold it. Get a feel for how holdin’ a gun feels.”

She gestures it towards him, and he rises from his seat with nerves alight. Should he? How does he know this isn’t a trick? What if it’s loaded?

“It’s a two-eighty British carbine,” she tells him. “Takes Nato rounds. We used to use ‘em before they stocked up on MP5’s, so now they’re used for taking out the hungries. Go on, give ‘er a look-see.”

He outstretches his hands and wraps one around the underside of the body, cradling the body just south of the tapering neck, while the other hand trails along the trigger in curious movements. It’s awfully heavy, nearly weighing what he’d assume both his legs to weigh, and he’s suddenly grateful for the attached strap she slings around his neck.

“It’s an assault rifle, but it works more like a hunting rifle,” she explains. “Not exactly a favorite for individual action, but they’re good in an ambush. You like it?”

He shakes his head a little and looks over at her, “I feel like I’ll drop it.”

She nods at that, knowingly, and reaches out to take it from him, “I figured, but now you know what holding artillery feels like.” She lays the gun back on the table and lifts the sling from around his shoulders as she does so, and reaches into her backpack again. This time, she pulls out something much smaller and more compact and something he knows will be much simpler to hold and maneuver. “Here, try this on for size.”

It’s a handgun, exponentially lighter and easy to lift and swish around in the air, as he sways his arms theatrically to demonstrate.

“Sig Pro pistol,” she says without looking up, still rifling through her backpack. “Semi-automatic, takes nine millimeter Nato rounds. Good for up-close combat and good for head-shots. Reloads quickly so you never have to worry about being rushed.”

It’s a much more versatile and lightweight gun, and it feels nearly familiar beneath his palm, almost as if it’s calling out to him. He wonders if this happens with every gun-lover, if they find their perfect gun and begin to treat it like family, like it’s been a part of them all along. He wonders if he will ever be one to find his family-perfect gun.

“We don’t use handguns as much so you can take more than one if you like.”

Another minute of over-analyzing passes before he sets the pistol down onto the table and places his hands in his lap. These guns have killed people before. Hundreds, maybe _thousands_ of infected. The weight of what he’s metaphorically holding begins to thicken, and he wonders just how heavy of a conscience he’ll have just by holding those thousands of souls within one little weapon.

“Evelyn,” he says waveringly, almost as if it were a question. She perks up and tilts her head with a little hum, and he swallows around his dry throat. “How many people have you killed with these?”

The smile drains from her face, and she begins to break eye contact, “I can assure you, kid, we have never killed an undeserving human. We do our job and only assassinate those who hold a threat to us.”

“That’s not what I asked,” he repeats himself very softly, as if scared.

Evelyn sighs, however, and sets her hands on her arms in a near-crossing motion. “A lot of 'em, Zitao. A lot of 'em.”

He frowns, “How much is a lot?”

“Too many to count,” she admits, shaking her head shamefully. “A few years back, we hit an impasse where everything seemed to be letting up. People wasn’t as sick, and we was seeing more healthy than infected. We thought maybe we finally had this outbreak under some kind of control, even if it was regional. That was when we finally learned how the infected work, how they all cooperate and how they react. But as expected, it was a red herring. We lost thirty-eight men that summer once the heat spiked back up, because biologically, bacteria grows when it’s hot.”

He blinks and suddenly regrets feeling ashamed of her. He’d never thought about the fact that the virus could breed and multiply outside of hosts. Could it even be on the very grass he walks on? In the water he drinks? In the air they breathe?

“How many infected?” He asks. “If you lost… that many people…”

However, she just shakes her head, “Way too many.”

Now, suddenly, he feels like he’s overstepped a line he wasn’t invited across. “I’m sorry."

“Don’t be sorry,” she says simply, and reaches out to take the pistol and place it back in her backpack. “Ain't your fault. We was just stupid and thought we could outsmart the world, but that’s the thing that nobody tells you. You read about all of these end-of-the-world scenarios in books and you see them in movies, where people turn into zombies and the only real threat is being bitten and turnin'. When dealing with something that has the ability to live outside of a warm host, you’s playing with fire and it is entirely out of your control. The virus is much more than what we see in those movies; it's hot, it’s alive, and there is no way of stopping it. Physiologically speaking, there are hundreds of ways to die out there that don’t involve being made into a meal. The infection is everywhere you turn, in the water, in the air, on the ground. We living each day like we's walking on needles, Zitao, and one wrong move and we's done.”

“Oh.”

Truthfully, he had never thought about that. He could have died just by running from the sanctum. What about when he’d tripped and gotten dirty? What if the infection entered his bloodstream? Wouldn’t he be dead already?

“That is why you’s so special to everybody, Zitao,” she says calmly. “Because for some reason, you defied all of the odds and you survived. The infection runs amuck inside of you and yet your body doesn’t react. That is why everyone wants you.”

“They want to make medicine out of me,” he says, and she nods slowly.

“Precisely. They want to do exactly that, but that requires removing your brain and sectioning off the growths. In doing that, it will completely cauterize your nerves and will render you immobile. You’ll be alive, but you won’t be livin'.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve been down this road already, kid,” she laughs a little, and it helps lighten the mood. “Everyone’s been trying to figure out what the key to finding a vaccine could be. Some people started making treatments that didn’t work, other people thought it could be the hungries themselves with the live-wired infection inside of them, that perhaps searching inside a hungry brain could explain to us just what makes that version of the infection so different than the rampant infection, why they are not overcome with the lack of consciousness that others are. But every attempt anybody’s made has come up short, and we’re not sure why. It’s gotta be somewhere, we just don’t know where.”

“So they want me because I’m immune for some reason,” he recites carefully, and she nods.

“Truthfully, nobody is sure why you’s immune and why nobody else is,” Evelyn rests her chin on her palm, elbow on the tabletop. “I believe that there are other hungries out there just like you, that hold that immunity to the other forms of the virus, but I know not every hungry is able to withstand the bacteria that way. As to why that is, nobody's really sure.”

He sighs and looks down at his lap and says, “They told me back at Sacro that I was the key, the missing link, and that they’ve tested on tens of hundreds of hungries and they’ve all come up short in finding this vaccine, and I never understood how that can be.”

“What you have to understand, Zitao, is that the hungry virus is different than the outside virus, but at the same time it’s not. They both produce the same bacteria, but the hungry virus has been naturally contained. When it’s inside the host as it’s bred, it’s a little bit weaker and does not hold up well outside of a body. This is why hungries don’t infect people as easily because the virus does not actually grow and rather acts as an illness, and instead will sicken the new host rather than rewiring their incorporeal systems. Does that make sense?”

He nods, and she continues.

“With the rampant virus, it is very active and not at all contained, so therefore, infection is very likely and the virus is extremely contagious because it has not been naturally contained, and therefore, is impossible to withhold. Hot and cold, we call 'em. With something so widespread and so out of hand, it’s physically impossible to put it into a glass jar the way we can with the hungry virus, you know? So what these doctors and scientists are trying to do is figure out what makes the hungry virus so weak and containable, and what makes the live virus so explosive, whether it’s got to do with the chromosomes or if the white blood cells perhaps chip away at the bacteria and weaken their defenses, we’s not sure. The reason _you_ is so different is because you been exposed to the hot virus as compared to the cold, and normally in a cold body, the hot virus will simply kill the cold virus and take over, and this is why hungries cannot feed off of other hungries because the bacteria ignites and spreads the infection. With you, however, none of that happened, and nobody is sure why. It’s like the cold bacteria inside of you actually killed the hot bacteria upon contact, and therefore, you never turned.”

He frowns, “How do you know all of this?”

“People talk,” she says, “and I used to be a nurse down at the Whitehorse sanctuary base. I helped with containing the hungries and prepping them for surgeries. In my free time, I’d study the virus and see how it all works. It’s so fascinating, and so _terrifying_. I know, none of this probably makes any sense, but you are one in a billion, Zitao. We must have sliced into hundreds, maybe thousands of hungries to no avail. You is the living proof that salvation is out there.”

“So you want me to die to save you,” he replies, and she just slumps down in her seat.

“I don’t want to call it that, but - essentially, that is what everybody wants from you, yes. However, the reason people want to contain you so badly is because they want the vaccine all for themselves. They want to be the first to patent it so everybody knows _who_ made it and _where_. The reason I want to help you get to Iqaluit is because the east end is not well-equipped and I know from personal experience that they could very easily slip up and lose the only good thing we have in this world. I want you to go somewhere that can actually _help you_ and can keep you alive so you can see just what you’ve created, Zitao. You can see the dominoes you’ve lined up and watch as they all begin to fall. I want you to be proud of yourself and what you is.”

He swallows and realizes that she’s gotten so into the explanation that her eyes have begun to tear and her chin has started to tremble. “Is this what you wanted for your son?”

She nods, and reaches up with quivering fingers to wipe away her tears. “Yeah. I wanted him to be proud to be alive. Just like you.”

Reaching out, he lays his hand across the back of hers, and gives her fingers a light squeeze. It seems to help, because she smiles weakly at him, in need of reassurance, and he’s never until this moment thought of this woman as fragile.

“What do I need to do, Sergeant?”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

Evelyn takes him out into the woods behind the building and has him doing target practice on trees. _Aim for the middle of the trunks_ she tells him _. Hit them right on the middle so you know exactly where to shoot._ He misses a few times and fumbles with getting used to holding the gun, but he manages. Evelyn is extremely supportive and commemorative, giving him feedback on each shot he takes.

She has him practice on both the pistol and the carbine, letting him take as much time as he needs positioning both and adjusting the scope. _Make sure you can see right where you're going to be shooting, keep your breath tight and your arms steady. Good, that's it. Just a little more centered._

It's not as cold today, and Evelyn has given him a pair of military boots so he doesn't get splinters on his feet and can maintain his balance.

“The carbine is going to kick a lot more than that lil’ thing,” she says as she positions it against his shoulder. “Use your shoulders as support for the stock and keep your head straight and centered.”

As expected, the rifle is much harder to aim and handle than the handgun but it does have more of a kickback, one that makes his breast ache and his breaths clip. He decides after only a few shots that the pistol is the way he’s going to go.

Yet, as much as he tries to familiarize himself with the gun, as much as he trails his fingers expectantly over the sleek black casing, it feels oddly foreign and slightly cold.

“Good work,” Evelyn says, and she strides over and pats him on the head, and a rush of warmth surges through him, maternal and familiar and sweet. It’s a beautiful feeling, fleeting and yet very prideful, and he smiles in return. “You did really well, kid.”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“Evelyn?”

That night when they’re wrapping up the day’s activities and Zitao is preparing for bed, his big escape day just looming within the distance and the desperation for a good night’s rest tickling at the backs of his eyes, Evelyn is helping him pack a bag - and rightfully so, he’s still very wary. She’s given him a military-grade knapsack, large and pocketed across the surface within which she stocks water, the baggies of bandages and ointment, as well as an extra change of clothes and some zip ties, some packets of gunpowder, and his handgun stored at the very top with its safety on. She had been very clear in stating that most of this stuff is for emergencies only, and that he cannot just run back to her for refills. He had understood because he knew each and every person in this world could never guarantee themselves a tomorrow.

She’d let him change into separate clothes and it makes him wonder just how much clothing they have stocked up here, and she’d taken his necklace from him without question and placed it beside him on the bedside table. She’d never asked him about it, never asked why he seems to be so inexorable in letting it out of his sight even for a moment, always requiring it be within an arm’s length of him, but she assumed it must have been something very intimate to him. Beneath the surface, he’s glad that she doesn’t press the matter.

“What’s up, kid?” She asks as she folds the last of their newly-washed clothes and places it on the dresser, stacked and assorted. It’s been reminiscent watching her do the laundry, watching her hang each piece up on a line like his mother used to do when there weren’t machines. It feels like he’s a little boy again.

Yet although it’s comforting, he feels a sense of detachment deep down inside of him, something dark and hollow. His days are indefinitely numbered and yet Evelyn seems content with taking care of him as if he were her own. He wonders what she was like before everything went wrong, before her son took his own life and before she lost her husband. Was she the same, just as nurturing and just as sentimental? Or was she different, bitter in a way that would have driven even the most faithful of partners away?

“Can you tell me more about your family?” He asks softly, and she stiffens in front of him before turning around, awestruck as she tries to discern whether or not he’s joking.

Instead, she just asks, “You’s a rather curious one, ain’t you?”

He slumps where he sits because he hadn’t meant to come off as nosy, he really was curious. Nevertheless, Evelyn pauses what she’s doing and strides over to him, boots heavy as ever, and he wonders suddenly - as military officers that have to do constant, routine patrols - if they ever get to unwind and undress and sleep in their underclothes the way he does, in a soft bed the way he does. He wonders if they stereotypically sleep sitting up, waiting for their radio signals to trigger.

In one whole move, she sits down on the cot with him and he pulls his legs up to his chest to give her more room, back against his pillow.

“Alright,” she says quietly. “Back in eighty-nine was when I met my husband, Maverick, and in ninety-two, we was married. He was a great guy, always devoted and always very in-tune with his family and his emotions. He was finishing up graduate school to become a lawyer, which was impressive considering he was only twenty-four. I was only nineteen at the time, hadn’t been in school long. I wanted to become a police officer, so I was doing a lot of police training at the time. Maverick wasn’t rich because he’d had to pay for classes all by himself, but that was okay.”

“He sounds like a nice man,” Zitao comments quietly beside her, and she nods in tandem.

“He was a very nice man,” she says, and a tranquil grin spreads across her face at the memory. “He loved to give to others, always donated whatever money he had left over after tuition and bills and his weekly luxury costs. We had a lovely wedding down in Bermuda, right on the sand in the middle of a gorgeously blue, hot day. Not a cloud in the sky. Ooh, he was _gorgeous_ that day, nice little black suit and those beautiful brown eyes. I still remember him telling me how he could see the reflection of the sun in my eyes, and that was right before we sealed our vows.”

Zitao doesn’t realize he’s blushing at the story until he catches himself smiling along and it’s only then that he realizes his cheeks have warmed, as well. He’s never been necessarily _ashamed_ of the fact that men have always been more attractive to him than women have, like the people he’d see on the television in his parents’ daily shows. He’s never been disappointed in himself, but he’d never gotten the opportunity to tell his parents about it before they… _left._

“After that,” Evelyn continues gently, “My first son Ethan was born. He was tiny and chubby and perfect, and he was the picture-perfect baby. Ethan passed all of his milestones, learned to walk and talk and read, and soon enough, Maverick and I wanted another child. Then we had Daisy.”

It does not go unnoticed how her voice wavers when she mentions her daughter, and he wonders if he’s struck a nerve that he wasn’t supposed to reach.

“Daisy was a pretty little thing,” she chuckles and shakes her head. “Dense, but pretty. She had these - _striking_ blue eyes, which was our very favorite thing about her, because the rest of us had brown eyes. She was our little blue-eyed angel. Then she started to grow,” Evelyn says, but her voice begins to clip, “and she started to miss her milestones. She didn’t walk right away, and talked even less. We thought maybe she had some kind of learning disability. So, we took the children to get them tested, and - that’s when they… they broke the news to me. Pulled me aside, separated me from my husband just to tell me that Ethan was… _different_.”

He frowns, “Different?”

She inhales and exhales through her nose in an elongated sigh, “They didn’t want to tell me, but I made them. They said his blood was unusually concentrated with white blood cells and that they seemed to be attacking the regular red blood cells, rather than a foreign antibody, and that the tissues in his brain were unusually patchy and shredded in places. When I asked them what that meant, they told me that he might be suffering from a rare form of meningitis, something that was very rapid in succession and seemed to have some kind of immunity to the healthy antibodies, and they put him on ozurdex and vancomycin, which'er pretty strong antibiotics and steroids. At the time, the term _hungry_ only meant you hadn’t eaten in some odd hours.”

“How did you find out he was a hungry?”

She slumps her shoulders and looks down at her shoes, “We had a neighbor named Nate. Strange guy, but he had a lot of dogs, and the kids really loved to go see the dogs and feed 'em treats. One day when Ethan was just about to turn ten, we let the kids play in the backyard while we was painting the living room, and we ain’t know anything was wrong until the next morning when Nate knocked on our front door. Said, y’all know who woulda killed my pit mix last night? We said no sir, ‘cause we had no idea. At the time, we ain’t really have modernized news so nobody knew about it other than us. But we told him we’d let him know if we figured it out and we’d help get him a new dog. That night, Ethan came to me cryin’ and saying that he’d bitten the dog and that he wasn’t sure what was wrong with him, or why he did it. He told me he’d suddenly felt starved and and then it felt like he was… almost _detached_ from himself, like his conscience had left his body and his body had attacked the dog while his conscious was outside. We ain’t know what to do with him, so we never told our neighbor. When we took Ethan back to the doctor to ask 'em about upping the medication, and also telling them about these episodes he would have. By the time he had passed his tenth birthday, they told us the infection had encompassed his entire brain and that they didn’t understand how he wasn’t dead. They said there was _no reason_ that he should have been as fully-functional as he was for how sick he was,” she purses her lips and knots her hands together and says, “They told me they’d give Ethan a week at _best_ to live.”

He shakes his head and presses his thumbs into his ankles, “Were the doctors the ones to suggest that he could be a hungry? Or…”

“No,” she says monotonously, “I did that myself. When they told us we would lose him, I broke down and quit school. I was so depressed that I started sleepin' in Ethan’s bed with him every single night, and it broke Maverick’s heart that I had become so distant, but my baby needed me. The next day when he went to school, I started doin' some research. I knew he couldn’t have been the _only one_ on this earth with a condition like his, and I was right. The internet was going crazy with news like this, of people dissociating and feeding on people. They were calling it the ever-cliche zombie apocalypse, the kind we’d all known about from movies and books where you round up a group of heroes and give ‘em guns and shoot the sick in the heads. Except this time, they were living among us. All of 'em, they was all so human and so sick at the same time. I printed out several of the articles and brought them to the doctors, and they simply turned me away and told me to never come back. The next week, Ethan never died, but his hunger only grew. Daisy started becoming afraid of her big brother, and started sleeping in my bedroom with my husband, just in case Ethan came and bit her in the middle of the night. At the time, you see, there were no rehabilitation centers for the hungries, no sanctions where we could seek out help. It was like living with a ticking time bomb, just waitin' for it to one day explode and _pouh_ , blow all our heads clean off.”

She shifts a little bit, drags her hands down her pants in a wiping motion before continuing, “And we had really tried our best to accommodate him, but all good things come to an end. Daisy was dead a month later. We found ‘er laid in her bed like she never even woke up.”

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, and she just shakes her head and settles her hands behind her and leans into her weight there.

“Ain't your fault,” she says passively. “After Daisy died, we buried her in the graveyard down the street, and Ethan was so wrought with guilt that he took his own life. When Maverick found out, he screamed at me and shot himself in the head. After that, I packed my things and entered the military so I could protect people. I was so angry at myself for so long for being unable to protect my family, like it was all my fault.”

“So you became Sergeant?”

“Well,” she says with a laugh. “I wasn’t supposed to be, but the last Sergeant was killed in battle, so they promoted me to the front line.”

So that’s how it’s been, he thinks. Evelyn really has lost everything she’s ever loved before, and has had even her very own husband turn against her. He aches for her and can’t fathom how some people could be so unerringly cruel.

He wonders, briefly, if he would be able to ever find love. Would he die before he found a partner? He remembers just how unhappy his mother was with his father, but how serene Evelyn seemed when speaking about her husband. He wonders if he will ever find anybody patient enough to withstand him, or if they will turn out to be cruel just like Evelyn’s husband.

“Alright, kid,” she breathes out a sigh of relief and turns to look at him. “Your turn. Tell me about your family.”

He blinks. Tell her about… his mom? And his dad?

“Or at least,” she continues, “tell me as much as you want to.”

He swallows around a dry throat and adjusts his hands around his ankles, and rests his chin atop his knees, “Well - my family… my mom was a nurse and my dad was a security guard. He helped protect the Vancouver gates. When I had turned six I think, my mom had gotten laid off and she started spending all of her time at home with me. My dad - ”

He pauses as his thoughts begin to race, ugly and bleak as memories of his father shouting, angry and swearing cross his mind, and Evelyn seems to notice out of the corner of his eye, as she tilts her head down to try and meet his gaze. “Your dad?”

“My dad was - ” he licks over his lips and breathes deeply to recollect himself. “My parents never really got along. My mom liked to baby me, since I was their only child, but my dad hated it. He always yelled at her, sometimes he would hit her. He always told her how useless she was.”

“Oh, Zitao,” she coos. “I’m sorry you had to see all that.”

“My mom tried to make sure I never saw,” he explains delicately. “But I wasn’t stupid. They’d argue a lot, almost every night after I went to bed. He’d say I wasn’t manly enough, I was too girly, that if I ever got bullied when I was older, my mom was going to be responsible for it. He wouldn’t let me watch certain shows, wouldn’t let me hang out with my friends. He’d say they were all bad influences on me. Whenever my dad went to work, my mom would let me call my friends and would let me watch T.V. again.”

Evelyn smiles, “Your mom seems nice.”

“She was,” he smiles back at her, and he realizes this is the most he’s ever smiled since his mom left him. “My mom would have done anything for me just to make me happy. She didn’t even want to tell me when my dad died. She said it would have ruined my birthday, but - I didn’t mind. I wasn’t really close to my dad.”

“Did she cry?”

“Not a lot,” he shakes his head and looks down at his socked feet. “Before he’d died, they had an argument one night. They were talking about this… _rebellion_ , and were talking about hungries and monsters and all that. That’s when my dad said that… I could be one of them. I didn’t know what he meant, but he made it seem like I was this… creature, like I was the scum of the earth. He gave my mom a hard time about keeping me in the house when I was a threat to them, and said that their wisest move would be donating me to Sacro so I was out of their hair. Then one day, he - he shot my aunt… right in front of me.”

“Oh my God,” she breathes out. “You poor, sweet thing.”

He braves the emotion welling up inside of him and turns his eyes to the ceiling. “She was infected, so there wasn’t really anything we could do about it. That was the first time I’d ever yelled at him, and he spanked me in front of my mom. She couldn’t do anything about it, or he’d hit her, too. After that, she started taking me outside like every day was our last. She’d take me on picnics, to lakes, to the beach, to parks, everywhere, and they would be our play days. Just the two of us, some beautiful weather, and a nice lunch. My mom gave me everything I ever wanted.”

Evelyn reaches over and lays a hand on top of his where it sits around his ankle, and he’s thankful for the warmth it provides him with.

“I had a best friend at the time, too,” he says. “His name was Sehun, and he moved here from Korea when he was little. I didn’t think Sehun would be as good at English as he was, but he even helped teach me some words that I didn’t even know. He was the only real friend I ever had, and we would hang out as often as possible inside of school and out. He was the one that - that made me realize I was a hungry, because he was, too.”

“How did he know?”

Zitao shrugs a little bit and says, “He said he could smell the infection inside of me, but I didn’t even know that - hungries _had_ a strong sense of smell. I thought they were just… normal. Well, outside of the virus, anyway.”

“I’m guessing your parents never told you about the stages of the virus, did they, kid?” Evelyn asks softly, and he shakes his head in denial. Not even Sehun had went into extensive detail about what was really out there.

“I haven’t even seen any infected yet,” he confesses. “I mean - with my own two eyes. I, um… I was bitten right before I was admitted to Sacro.”

He expects her to freak out and hold him down by his throat, wrap her arms around it until he can no longer breathe, or even shove the barrel of her gun into his mouth and pull the trigger, but she just presses her tongue against her cheek and nods, “Did anyone tell you how the infection made its way out of hungry bodies?”

He shakes his head, “Do they bite people?”

“Kind of,” she says quietly. “It spreads through cannibalism. A hungry feeds off of another hungry, and the virus becomes hot and they begin to turn. Once turned, they infected and they can infect other people.”

“Oh.”

“That’s why it’s so crucial for hungries to feed off of healthy, live meat,” she explains. “The antibodies in live, clean blood are what help to coat the viral cells inside a hungry body, so when you combine two different levels of the hot virus, it reacts and bursts outside of the cells, which mutates the chromosomes and spreads the virus. As the virus grows inside of a new host, it mutates over the course of several years. The first level, or generation, as we call them, are the hungries. They's the birthplace of the virus, and only once the biological barrier is broken inside of them, do the other generations start winding down.”

“I’m guessing there are more generations?” He asks. Evelyn nods, and rubs her hands together.

“Generation two is where things start going wrong,” she says. “We call 'em walkers, but most people call 'em the infected. They look and act human, but they are soulless, unlike the hungries. The infected can see you, hear you, and smell you, just like hungries can. Generation three are the seedlings, or as some people call 'em, the monsters. They’s mutated versions of the infected and are no longer human in any way, as they can no longer breathe and instead absorb oxygen through their skin. Seedlings ain't have any of the five senses that we have, except for touch. They sense vibrations.”

“Are they a threat?”

“They excrete spores through crevices in the scarring on their skin,” she explains. “You ever see one, they look like walking reptiles, all covered in tumors and shelled skin. The spores are the airborne version of the virus, and once breathed in, they stick to the lining of the throat and the lungs and begin to fester and breed.”

“Have you ever killed one before?”

Evelyn shakes her head and says, “None of us have. We’s not sure what their weakness is, but we’s also not brave enough to find out. Seedlings harbor in groups usually in more desolate areas, like fields and abandoned streets. They are not common in cities like these.”

“So they’re only a threat if you run into them by accident?”

“Exactly,” she says. “Though, out in this world, the only real threat other than the virus is humanity itself.”

The statement sticks to him like humidity in the middle of summer and leaves him feeling dirtied. It's true, he realizes, that people are the greatest threat to themselves. He realizes just how much of a threat to his mother that his father actually was, how he could have very easily taken his mother’s life at any given point just because he has the ability to.

He pouts to himself because now that he thinks about it, he realizes that his father never really told him he loved him. His father was always extremely passive and would give him monetary support in place of intimacy and would push him off onto his mother whenever he was sad. Now that he thinks about it, his father was never really there for him at all.

“What's wrong, kid?” Evelyn suddenly asks him, and he realizes that just within this short little week, Evelyn has already been more of a support to him than his own blood has. “You's quiet. Something on your mind?”

“It's just,” he starts, and doesn't know exactly how to finish. Would she think lesser of him if he told her, or would she even slap him on the cheek and tell him how filthy he is? Would she do all of the things his father would have if he were alive? “How did you discover you were… into men?”

Evelyn furrows her brows at the question and says, “Well, I suppose I was very young and probably still in grade school. I remember my mother used to listen to a lot of soft rock so I started really liking the style of music and how the artists dress, especially the guys. So I suppose it was then. Why?”

With a breath of apprehension, he meets her eye nervously and grabs onto his right thumb to stabilize himself. “I, um…”

“Zitao,” she says flatly, warmly, in such a tone that it melts on his skin. “What is it?”

He can do it, he _knows_ he can, but he’s worried, oh so worried. There is so much in the world that could go so very wrong, and he’s thinking about near a hundred of them. It feels so silly that he could be here, brave enough to tell a _complete stranger_ his deepest secret, and yet it feels so right somehow. He can see it in her eyes - the compound and bone-deep love she has for her family and her children, and how she would never do anything to make them feel abridged.

He sighs, and then says, “Can I tell you something a little personal? But you can’t tell anybody else.”

She nods, and his heart rabbits in his throat. _It’s okay._

“I… I think I like boys, too.”

Her lips part with a soft wet sound and her eyes begin to sparkle, and he realizes they’re watering and she looks as if she’s about to cry. He expects an attack, a slap, a kick, a punch, anything, but then - then there are arms around him, pulling him in close and pressing him against her bosom, and he stiffens slightly at the roughened feel of her vest against his skin. Evelyn is so warm just like the sun.

“Oh, kiddo,” she laughs next to his ear, a fleeting, joyous little sound, and it makes him smile. “There’s nothing wrong with bein' gay. Thank you for trusting me enough with this.”

 _Gay_ , he thinks. Is that the word for it? He’d never heard it before, or at least had never been paying attention. He didn’t know there was a word for it.

He exhales calmly against her collar and she gingerly pets the back of his hair, soothing over it with her fingertips. “I thought you’d hate me. My father always yelled at my mom for letting me watch so many shows with gay men in them. I used to watch my mother’s soap operas with her.”

Evelyn shakes her head and rests her chin on top of his head and says, “Oh, sweet boy. I could never hate you, you trusted me enough to be honest and open like that. I ain’t even ask you to tell me that. Such a sweet little boy, you.”

He smiles and lets himself go lax in her arms, lets himself drift away in her hold as each pass of her fingers along his scalp sends him further and further into the sea of subconscious, as he sinks lower and lower until he falls asleep, happy, sated, and proud of himself for the very first time.

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“ _No_! _Get **offa** him_!”

He startles awake to the sensation of hands around his throat, tightening, _constricting_ , sporadically ebbing with the press of thumbs not quite hard enough to bruise but certainly hard enough to restrict his breathing. He struggles, scrambling for a grip on the fingers as he gapes and chokes for a simple breath, just one, just a little.

One of the guards is straddling his chest, thickened hands wrapped around his throat, and his face is glazed over with a look of hatred.

“This is the one, isn’t it, Evelyn?” The guard says, and Zitao recognizes him from the other night at dinner, the one with the curly hair tucked into a bun, the one that served him his soup. “This is _him_ , isn’t it?”

“Jared, let him go!”

It’s only now that he realizes that Evelyn is screaming very near the top of her lungs, voice beginning to shrill and break, and he tries to crane his head as best he can to see where she is. She’s positioned a little ways away, hands wrapped upon the trigger of his handgun as she aims it towards the guard, but he can see the reluctance in her eyes. He can see just how petrified she is of accidentally striking Zitao rather than the guard, or both in succession. “Just let him go and I’ll set him free,” she reasons with a lower voice, but the man’s hands grow minimally tighter and he chokes loudly into the stillness of the room. “We don’t have to do it like this.”

“ _Shut up_ ,” the guard snaps at her. “Shut the _fuck_ up. Your little mommy bitch don’t know what she’s holin’ up here, kid. _Five hundred grand_ , Evelyn!” He begins to scream, and the sound is so resonant and loud that it brings tears to Zitao’s eyes as he kicks beneath him and struggles to stay awake, struggles to see, struggles to hear, struggles to _stay alive_. “You thought we were too stupid? The hell you doin’ holdin’ the Sacro runaway hostage like this, Sergeant? You outta your _goddamn **mind**_?”

“Jared, get those fucking hands off of him before I _shoot_ them off, he _can’t fucking **breathe**_!”

He goes into a full-body convulsion as the hands pull away and air floods back into his body, as he heaves _deep_ and begins to hack, begins to shake, begins to _cry_. He’s so scared, fear alighting every nerve in his body as he realizes just how fragile the string of life is suddenly, just how frayed it seems to be becoming with every passing second. He hadn’t wanted to die like this, not anymore, not since Evelyn gave him a reason to stand up and keep walking, keep running, keep fighting, not when he’s just learned what freedom means and what acceptance tastes like and just how fulfilling pride in oneself can feel. He’s not ready to give up.

“So this is how it’s gonna be, huh?” The man says hedonistically, the shadow of a twisted smirk glazing his lips. “You take the reward all for yourself and you even teach the fucker to shoot so he can do away with us and you and he can run off into the sunset and build a home together? You don’t even _know_ him, Evelyn, he’s a fucking _hungry_!”

“He’s a kid!” She yells, hands beginning to shake. “He woulda died if I had left him.”

“ _Good_! Maybe then you’d get it through your thick skull that hungries aren’t house pets, you stupid bitch.”

“Jared,” she warns, “you _know_ how prerogative it is to get this boy across the country. You _know_ how much we could do with him and how much he could do for us, and I know you want his help too.”

“You don’t know what I want, Evelyn.”

“I _do_ know what you want,” she says, and her gun begins to slacken as she separates her hands and raises her palms. “I know you want revenge for Marie and Kendall, but takin' it out on the only good thing we will ever see again is not the way to go. I know you was angry about losing them, but that’s not Zitao’s fault and you _know_ that."

“No, it **_is_** his fault!” Jared roars and stands from the cot, and with heavy steps, he faces the Sergeant. “If you hadn’t been coddling him like a fucking doll, he would have been out there giving us a vaccine already.”

“He wants the same thing we do,” she says as she takes a step backward, and Zitao has half a mind to sit up and tackle the officer to the ground to save Evelyn as the officer begins to reach for the long gun strapped to his back. “I talked to him, and he told me he plans to go to the base himself to find his mother, and while he’s there, he’s going to donate himself for a vaccine.”

“Yeah? Then what the fuck’s he doin’ sleeping under our roof?”

“He can’t defend himself if he doesn’t know how to shoot a fucking gun, I _told_ you this already.”

“Why do you care, Evelyn? Is it because you want him as your fucking son?”

“Shut up,” she snaps, and Zitao’s heart skips a beat. “You don’t mention my family and I don’t blow your goddamn head off, because you are treading on some _incredibly_ thin ice, here, officer.”

The officer then lets out a laugh, entirely silent along a breath of air as his shoulders shake, and Zitao tenses beneath him.

“So that’s what this is about,” the officer says. “You’re trying to replace Ethan, aren’t you?”

“Jared,” she hisses.

“No,” he says calmly, _too_ calmly. “You shut your fucking mouth, because I know what you’re trying to do, Evelyn. You want the boy all for yourself because you miss your little Ethan, isn’t that right? _You_ kept him here so you could fill your heart again all while knowing _he_ holds your life in his little fucking hands. Y _ou_ put us at risk each and every night we let him sleep here, and you put us in direct exposure to the virus _just_ so you could piss around in your fancy little illusions, right? Well I’m putting a stop to this, because he’s getting the fuck out or he’s getting a bullet in his fucking mouth.”

And then he remembers - his backpack.

It’s right here, right next to the cot, right out of eyesight where neither of them would be able to see.

Carefully, he slides his hands down the side of the cot to the zipper and begins to pull it back, slowly, meticulously, making sure neither of them can hear it. He can do this, he knows he can. It’s right here, right underneath the zipper. He can make Evelyn proud.

“What would Maverick say, Evelyn?” The officer says theatrically with a gargled, disgusting laugh. “I think he’d be upset that you’re trying to replace the memory of his one and only son, don’t you think?”

Zitao hears the sound of the officer’s gun cocking and his pulse triples.

“I think he’d be _more_ upset that you forgot all about your precious little boy and adopted a fucking _murderer_ in his memory. So sweet.”

“Not another fucking word,” she hisses with her gun raised, and Zitao can see even from afar, even from across the room, even from the dim mid-morning light, that her eyes are glistening. He can see the trails of tears down her freckled cheeks and the tremble in her chin as she fights herself silently.

“And if I don’t listen?” He says, and in a flurry of action, he rushes and swings an arm out to pin Evelyn up against the wall by her collar bone, forearm locked in place across her chest and the nose of the gun pressed into her stomach. “Admit it, Evelyn. Admit you’re a weak piece of shit.”

She inhales shakily, purses her lips as if she’s thinking, before letting the breath out. “ _Fuck you_.”

Then the officer shakes his head, lets out that dark, twisted breath of a laugh again, and a smile spreads across his lips. “Wrong fucking answer."

He doesn’t know who shoots first - the officer, or himself - but before he knows it, Evelyn is crouched on the ground and the officer staggers away from him with three holes in his back, and Zitao drops the gun, leaps from the cot, and rushes to Evelyn’s aid with tears in his eyes.

“Oh my God,” he whispers, “oh my God, oh my God. I don’t know what to do, I don’t - I don’t know - ” he stammers as he scrambles to pry her hands away from her stomach so he can get a look at the wound and he blanches when he sees how darkly her uniform has been stained and how her hands glisten red like they’ve been freshly rouged and oiled. She winces when his fingers come in contact with the raw flesh, and he immediately pulls back like he’s burned her. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry, I don’t - I didn’t - ”

“Stop,” she hisses. “Stop apologizing. Ain't your fault.”

“It is!” He cries out. “I should have left, then - then you’d be okay.”

Evelyn shakes her head, however, and lets it fall back against the wall as she breathes out a sigh. “I need to radio in for backup, can you bring me the handheld? And a towel.”

He nods and immediately does as asked, rushing into the kitchen on quick feet and grabbing her handheld radio off of the table and hurrying back to dip into his personal bathroom for a towel, white and spotless and soon to be soiled.

“Here,” he kneels down and gestures for her to raise her hands so he can take over. Carefully, he lays the towel across her abdomen and reaches past her waist to wrap it around her. While he tucks the corners under, she clicks the side of her handheld and a buzzing noise emanates from its speaker.

“This is Sergeant Evelyn Hale from district seven,” she says in a low, gravelly tone, voice weak and words soft. “Requesting backup at the sheriff’s office, I got a man down and I been shot, as well. Requesting backup as soon as possible.”

He sits back on his haunches in agonizing fear that she’s going to slip away before his very eyes, but unbeknownst to him, she seems to be faring extremely well with the wound and is only taking deep breaths to calm herself. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, and reaches up to wipe his face. “I should have - I should have been more proactive, I should've shot him sooner, I'm _so sorry_ , please don't leave me, please. Don't die, please. You _can't._ ”

Then, there’s a soft hand mimicking his, tracing the lines that his have traced, fingertips delicate on his damp skin as she lays her warm palm against his cool cheek, as she holds him steady with that simple touch.

“Don’t be sorry, kid,” she gives him a weak smirk. “Don’t ever be sorry, because no matter what happens, you'll always make me proud, and you'll always make your mother proud.”

He shakes his head because no, he hasn’t made his mother proud, and he certainly couldn’t have made Evelyn proud. How could she be proud of him when he’d sat back while she was wounded and he let her die? If anything, she should be ashamed of him. “There’s nothing to be proud of, I’m horrible, I’m absolutely awful. I let you get hurt.”

“It’s okay,” she whispers. “Sometimes, people need to fall down in order for others to get up.”

A tear drips from the corner of his eye and pools against his nostril and he covers his mouth, sobbing weakly into his palm.

“Don’t cry,” Evelyn tells him, and he understands now. Evelyn knows what it’s like to be brought down by everything in the world, to have everything ripped from her save her own life, and it was what gave her the fire to stand up and fight back, to go on for her family’s pride and the hope that they were watching her somewhere from afar. “Not for me, kid. I ain't worth your tears, believe me.”

“No, you are,” he reassures her. “You are, because you helped me! You helped me, and - and I have to help you in return, that’s only fair. I can’t let you just die like this.”

“I’ll be fine, Zitao. Help is coming for me,” she says with a sigh, adjusting her fingers on the towel and when he looks down, he notices there’s a dark red stain beginning to bloom through the fabric, and he wishes that she hadn’t taken off her bulletproof vest for once. For once, why did she have to get out of her armor? “Besides, nobody is immortal. We is all human, deep down. Even you, kid, and every other hungry just like you. We are all people, and we all get hurt.”

He sniffles but he nods anyway because Evelyn knows her limits and knows her pain threshold, and if she says that she’s going to survive, then Zitao is inclined to believe her.

“But you can’t stay here,” she says, and his heart skips.

“What?”

With a slow breath, she explains, “When the battalion gets here, they’s going to expect infected. You need to leave, it’s not safe for you. They _will_ kill you if you’s still here by then.”

“But where am I supposed to go? I can’t just leave you alone.”

“You have to, Zitao, there’s no other way.”

She raises a weak hand and gestures vaguely in the direction of his bed behind her, “Go grab your backpack, kid. You can take everything in it to help you on your way.”

Glossy-eyed and awestruck, he shakes his head, “No, I - I can’t _leave you_ , Sergeant.”

“Zitao,” she presses. “It wasn’t a question. I want you to stay alive as badly as you want me to stay alive, so do me this favor and leave. Please. The officers will take care of me, I promise.”

After a long pause of thought, he agrees and stands to retrieve his backpack. Evelyn instructs him to take a pair of regular clothes with him, into which he changes in the side bathroom, a simple pair of jeans and a military jacket. He feels official, big, and _powerful_. He feels grown-up.

He laces the boots up his ankles and slings the backpack over his back, and kneels down by the Sergeant’s side one more time. She's stretched her legs out along the floor and closed her eyes as if asleep, but it begins to panic him. What if she's not actually asleep?

He carefully reaches out a hand and hovers it over her as if to reach out and touch her, but he's disrupted by a loud bang on the front door which startles Evelyn awake and he jolts full-bodied.

“They're here,” she says and looks up at him. “You have to leave, _now_.”

“But what about you?” He asks rapidly as his hands shake. Should he give her a hug goodbye? What if they can't fix her? “Will you be okay?”

“Zitao,” she deadpans, and after a few seconds, lets out a weak chuckle. “I pushed two kids out of me and lead troops of soldiers along the front gates. I think I'll be okay.”

He nods because she's right, she's been hurt before, how could she not have been? He wonders briefly what it feels like to get shot, how badly it hurts and if it's an ache or a burn, but another loud thud at the front door has him deciding in a split second that he’ll have to take her word for the matter and he heads towards the window.

“And kid,” she says behind him, and he halts where he’s hiking one knee up onto the windowsill. “Remember to always keep your guard up. People are cruel out there, and anybody you see could be a hunter. Even me.”

His heart thumps as he rolls the thought around in his head, trying to decipher what it means, and with a simple nod of his head, he throws himself out of the window and takes off running, steps loud on the crunchy leaves and heartbeat just as vociferous, as he leaves everything he's ever known behind him in the vast unknown and begins anew.

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

The wind is slower today, tranquil along the leaves yet chilly where it rolls through the trees and over the hillsides. On cloudier days like this, he’d always held a preference to stay indoors and lay around in bed, maybe even play with his toys and watch some cartoons. Now that he's all alone, he's got no choice beside himself but to brave the weather depression and continue on his path. One step out of Abbotsford is one step closer to his mother.

He’s not been able to get a full night’s sleep since the killing, not when it plagues his dreams and the images replay behind his eyelids when he's struggling to maintain self peace. It’s all he can think about when he closes his eyes, when he sprawls out along his blanket at night, curled up against a tree more often than within a barren alleyway, anywhere really that offers him decent shading and seclusion. He enjoys larger trees with droopy branches and long, braided strands of leaves and vines that engulf the air beneath them like a canopy. He enjoys them and feels as though he could easily clear his mind underneath one of them, curled up with a book and a blanket on his lap.

Yet ever since the killing, he’s been relentlessly angry. He cannot understand why more people are not like Evelyn and why so many people are so cold deep down inside, why people never seem to see the human in those around them and only see their flaws. It’s a disgusting realization and he hates how it makes him feel, vulnerable and alone. He hates it, he hates them. He hates everybody.

He’s angry for Evelyn, so furious for her given sake because she had been working alongside traitors for how long now? Treason seems to have become the ugliest color he’s ever laid his eyes on.

True to his word, Zitao has kept his guard up. He’s realized after recounting the events of that night how low his walls were and how dismembered his guard was to nearly die in his own sleep because an officer caught him. He should have known better, should have trained his ears to better seek danger, should have _heard him coming_. He sleeps with one eye open from now on, never falling for any oddball glimmer of the sun or rustle of the leaves. He’s alone in a grown man’s world, and he’s so fucking terrified.

As he treks outside of Abbotsford, however, he realizes that the world is much emptier and more tranquil than he had originally expected. It’s quiet out here, calm in a frighteningly ominous way, just him and the sky. He’d managed to find a few houses that hadn’t yet been ransacked and emptied and had taken some extra clothing and canned foods and water bottles. It feels strange to have come so technologically far in humanity only to be forced to resort back to primal ways in order to thrive. Survival of the fittest, right?

Which means as the number of officers and infected he sees begins to decrease, so does the amount of food available for him. He hasn’t fed in nearly four days and he’s beginning to feel peckish, the ache deep in his stomach as though he’s been fasting for far too long. He wonders what will happen to him should he not feed for long enough - would he die, or would he turn? He wonders and wonders because he knows he can never expect answers and can only let his mind run and figure it out for himself. After all, that’s all he’s got anymore. Just him and himself alone.

And although he had promised to be strong and never falter, it’s easier said than done.

He’s just ducking past a bush to make a jump for a fat, juicy-looking bird when he hears gunshots in the very near behind him, and his heart jumps into his throat as he throws himself to the ground. Fuck, what if someone knows he’s out here? Were those shots for him?

Quickly, efficiently, he hikes up onto his hands and knees and races to his backpack on the ground by his blanket, yanks down the zipper, and wraps his hand around his pistol as he holds it close to him. He’s not going to let them get to him, he made Evelyn a promise. He can do this. He’s big and strong now, he can do it.

He flicks the safety off and stands on slightly shaky legs. Gunshots are an absolute omen these days and to be standing in a clearing just yards away from the shots tops the list as the dumbest idea he’s ever had, because he could blink and suddenly be surrounded by infected if his luck happens to be down today. Who the fuck was shooting that much in a fucking _forest_ , anyway?

Okay, he can do this. Breathe. In, out, and repeat.

He takes languid, careful steps, keeping his toes down and his heels light. As he grows closer, however, he begins to hear moaning and his heart skips a couple beats as he registers the telltale of all of his nightmares. It’s not unlike hunters to feign injury to secure a kill, or to strap down a civilian and rob them blind. Unfortunately for them, Zitao isn’t a fucking idiot.

He shoves an arm past the bushes and holds his gun out in front of him as he bursts into the next clearing, much smaller and latticed with miscellaneous rays of sun that peek through the crevices between the leaves.

There’s a body lying on the ground with a hand clutching their side, and Zitao notices what looks to be blood pooling beneath their fingers and it sends a large wave of deja vu rolling through him. Has this person been shot and then abandoned? No, they’re probably faking it, this has to be a ploy to steal his food and the clothes on his back, but he won’t fall for it. He can’t fall for it, never again, not after the night he almost lost Evelyn, not after the night his mother almost lost _him_. He can't continue being careless and getting himself hurt like this, not when his mother is still out there somewhere _alive_ , breathing, _waiting._

He takes a step closer and presses his finger to the trigger as the person’s head turns towards him, and his fingers slacken.

It’s a man, with long legs and dirtied clothing, laying on his back as if awaiting certain death, yet when he sees Zitao standing before him just meters away, he jerks and attempts to roll to stand, and Zitao falters on his heels.

“ _Help me_!” The man wheezes, holding his abdomen as he settles shakily onto his knees. “Please help me, I - they took everything - _fuck_ , ugh, _shit._ ”

He feels the pull inside his chest, his paternal instinct to help this man but no, he knows what a trap this could be, he knows how crafty the hunters around these parts can be. “What are you doing here?” Zitao mumbles out as he begins to lower his gun, seeing as the man truly has not a bag nor a simple gun to his ownership, yet he knows that the man could be hiding a switchblade between his thighs. What lies underneath a single layer of cloth could mean the fragility of lives held in the balance. “These are _my_ fucking woods.”

“No, you don’t understand,” the man tries again, and Zitao can see how he’s clearly struggling to take calm, steady breaths and stand on his own two feet, and Zitao can’t imagine how much a bullet wound must hurt but he’s not about to find out. “The hunters, they - they - ah, _fuck_ \- I was running and they caught me and tried to rob me, but I didn’t have anything and - _ah_ \- they got angry and shot me. Can you help me?”

Zitao wants to snort at how casual and calm he sounds for being in what is probably mindblowing pain, but he supposes that he’s probably not pulling his leg for what it’s worth because he can tell the blood isn’t fake. His entire act and the pain might be, but Zitao knows what real blood looks like when it’s leaking from a host.

“And how do I know this isn’t a trick, wise guy?” Zitao smirks. “Think I’m stupid?”

“I swear it’s not,” the guy tries again, voice just above a rasp, and Zitao begins to pity him a little bit. Maybe he is just a regular person who just regularly was shot in the abdomen. Zitao _knows_ that he’s got a medical kit in the side of his backpack, but that doesn’t mean he’s very inclined to waste it on this stranger. “I really was trying to run away and get help, but they - the hunters got me, and accused me of hiding food. _Please_.”

The guy seems genuine, though, and appears to be in genuine pain, as well. Zitao wonders, briefly, just how wide this guy’s pain threshold is if he’s managing steady conversation like it’s a little chat over tea, like there’s not a bullet wedged deep into his flesh, like he’s not bleeding out internally and like he’s not dancing around the cracks of death.

“Alright. If I help you,” he sneers and takes several steps forward, and the man sinks back down onto his haunches and winces at the tug on the wound. “You do exactly as I say, and _only_ that, or I shoot your fucking eyes out of your head. How’s that sound?”

“Of course! Anything!” The man nods, and now that Zitao can see him up close like this, he can see the innocence glimmer in those brown eyes, can see how they sparkle and glisten in unerring pain and for once, he doesn’t see even a simple streak of defiance in those irises. _Fine_ , he decides. He’ll help him, but he’s keeping his gun on him.

“Come on, up,” he says, taking several steps backwards as he keeps his eyes locked on the man and his front facing him. After a few moments of the man making no move to stand, simply gazing down at his injury, Zitao sighs aggravatedly and turns on his heel. It becomes silent as he walks away, boots crunching on the dead leaves and twigs, and he realizes that there are no footsteps mirroring his, trailing behind.

When he turns to look over his shoulder, the man hasn’t moved a muscle and is still settled onto his ankles, and it’s really starting to piss him off.

“Are you fucking coming or not?” Zitao barks, and the man looks down at the hand he has pressed to his abdomen and back up again to meet his eye.

“Can you help me stand, at least?” The man asks, and Zitao blanches. Is he fucking kidding?

“No,” Zitao says flatly. “Why the fuck would I do that? So you can stab me and take all of my shit? I don’t think so, Mr. Nice Guy. You want the help, you fucking come get it. Besides, I don’t seem to recall the hunters disabling your legs.”

The man pouts and says, “But it hurts.”

The statement makes Zitao roll his eyes and snort, “What are you, five? Use them or lose them.”

It’s really beginning to grate on Zitao’s nerves how flippant this guy is and how childish he seems, yet he looks to be probably twice his age. He can’t be serious, can he? Zitao is pretty sure gunshot wounds to the stomach don’t disable your legs, and he would actually manifest the genuinity within his heart to sling an arm under his shoulders and help him stand, if he trusted him even the slightest. He knows the guy would without a doubt scramble to his feet the second a gun was pressed to his head, but Zitao forces himself to calm down. After all, his mother and Evelyn wouldn’t be proud of the way he’s acting. They’d want him to be patient and collected, cool, _calm_. Breathe in, breathe out.

Eventually, the man does manage to stand and he staggers over to him on uneasy steps, feet heavy and steps jagged, moreso limping than actually walking. Out of genuine human gentility, Zitao doesn’t make him go far and instructs him to sit once they reach Zitao’s backpack. The man does as told, and certainly doesn’t do anything fishy. He doesn’t reach for a weapon, doesn’t make a love to lunge and attack, but simply settles back onto his haunches and sinks onto his rear.

As Zitao sinks to the man’s eye level to lay his gun in his lap and fish around in his backpack, he notices how genuinely attractive he is up close like this. His eyes hold a certain innocence to them, something he wonders if his own had always held, like he’s unabashedly baring his naked soul to the boy and isn’t regretting a second of it. He’s not that pale, maybe just a shade lighter than Zitao himself, and his hair is a rich, natural black that fades into a warm brown as it goes, where it falls just at the tops of his ears and messily shades his forehead. His face is nicely shaped, definitely mature and definitely nowhere near Zitao’s age, His nose is long but slender, more mixed looking than traditional, and his lips are pouty and chapped. He hates that he finds him strangely cute.

“Just so you know,” Zitao says suddenly, and it makes the man’s ears perk. “I’m not giving you my food and nursing you back to health. I’ll take the bullet out but then you have to skedaddle. I’m not here to babysit.”

The guy watches him as he procures the medical kit, watches as he undoes the latches and opens the box, presses his palm to the wound. Zitao wonders how long it would take for someone to die from a bullet to the stomach, but he decides to settle for _not that long._

“You look dumb,” Zitao comments offhandedly as he pulls out a pair of tweezers, a pack of sterile needles and a tiny spool of wiry thread. “Were you born yesterday?”

The man sighs gently next to him and shakes his head, “Something like that.”

Zitao raises an eyebrow at the statement but threads the curved needle anyway. “Alright, this is gonna hurt so just - bite your fist or punch the ground, or something.”

The guy just nods, and Zitao gestures for him to move his hand away so he can see. When he does, the boy carefully reaches down one-handed to prod at the wound, pressing his free palm to his gun just in case. Just in case.

What shocks him, however, is the guy still doesn’t make any move to kill him, not even when Zitao stretches his back and curves his spine in such a vulnerable way that would make it _optimally perfect_ for the guy to just shove a blade right in the center of his vertebra and render him immobile. Yet - he’s just sitting, hissing, _squirming_.

“Fuck, that’s cold,” he hisses and his legs kick, and Zitao has half a mind to press his knee right into the guy’s femur to keep him fucking still. “Ah, _fuck_.”

“Can you stop your bitching? I’m trying to get a bullet out of your fucking gut, if you haven’t noticed.”

It takes longer than he’d expected, but the guy is cooperative, and it honestly sickens him. He’s so used to being shunned and targeted and is so used to having his life played with like it’s a guitar string, and this guy is perhaps the most aloof fellow he thinks he’ll ever meet. Even while Zitao is peeling his shirt up to expose his abdomen and the gently firmed muscles that lie beneath, he doesn’t shimmy away; even while Zitao is stitching up his skin, he doesn’t flinch. He’s a little bit vulgar and a little bit noisy, but for not having had any numbing topicals applied to him whatsoever, the guy takes it like a fucking champ and it honestly makes Zitao proud of him - but he won’t tell him that, not now and probably not ever. It’s not his business.

After the stitching, Zitao tapes him up by laying a few layers of cotton padding and gauze on the wound and wrapping the tape securely around his side, stopping just at the middle of his back. When he’s done, he lets the guy pull his shirt back down and hands him a canteen of water to drink from. While the guy acts like he’s got himself together, it hasn’t gone unnoticed that the ordeal and the amount of blood he’s truly lost has gotten him very pale, and Zitao knows he isn’t strong enough to lug around a guy much taller and much older than him, and definitely _thicker_ which means _heavier_. And as expected from a tall man, the guy’s voice is deep but not so in a way where it sounds comical and altered, but in a way where it resonates within his chest and it lingers on a low growl. When he gets upset, Zitao notes, his voice rises in pitch nearly a whole octave.

The man takes long sips of the water, throat working and Adam’s apple bobbing as he gulps and fills himself, and Zitao is beginning to anger at how much he’s truly emptying the canteen, but he lets it go. He’ll probably never have to see this guy again after this, and he’s sure he can find water somewhere else. When he’s handed the canteen back, however, he raises a brow at how the guy begins curiously picking at the bandages as if he’s never seen gauze or medical tape before. Zitao wonders if this guy is a fucking _deadbeat_ or if he’s just grossly annoying.

"So what's your name, wise guy?"

The man looks up at him from where he's been perusing his bandages, large and calloused fingers playing with the frayed, stained gauze. "Yifan."

"Yifan," he repeats, looking down at his gun in his lap. "What part of China are you from then?"

"Oh, um," the guy - _Yifan_ \- stammers, and Zitao has to resist the urge to snort at how childish he sounds. "My parents were from Guangzhou, but I've lived here ever since I was a kid."

"You speak Chinese then?"

"I do," the guy boats in fluid Mandarin, syllables rolling off of his tongue as he smiles widely and splays his fingers across his knees. "What about you?"

Zitao looks up from his gun and is just a little bit surprised and a lot annoyed to see Yifan leering over at him curiously, eyes wondrously big and wide shoulders arched over, as he rests a hand under his chin and leans comfortably onto his knees. "Tao. Zitao. Call me _Tao._ "

Yifan purses his lips and inhales through his nose. "Zitao. Isn't that like how you say... _peach_?"

"Don't you dare," Zitao warns with his eyes, shoving a finger in the other man's direction as he shoots him the mother of all death glares.

"What?" Yifan smiles cheekily and Zitao wants to smack it right off of his face. "I can't call you peach? Or how about peachy? Or... peaches. Peachy- _keen_."

"Do you want a bullet in your fucking head, jackass?"

"Peaches and cream..."

He has to breathe calmly for a long moment, shoving down the urge to knock him out, before he looks back up at the guy and lets the breath out.

"I oughta tell you something, Yifan," he says offhandedly. "You know, that way I can test if you really won't kill me when I'm not looking. You ever heard of a hungry?"

The man blinks, big, bright eyes underneath dark, long hair that Zitao wants to yank out of his skull follicle by follicle. "They're the first gen of this whole virus, right?"

He nods with his lips pursed in a small pout, tongue resting gently against his cheek, "You ever _met_ a hungry?"

Another shake of the head, another rustle of too-long hair. "Not that I know of."

He wants to laugh, really, because this guy is too naive for his own good. "Tell me what you know about them."

"Well," Yifan starts awkwardly, thinking over what he's about to say.  "They're - the inbred branch of the virus, created only through infected birth and killed - "

"Only by cannibalism," he finishes for him, and watches in bated chagrin as Yifan swallows nervously and he can hear the man's heartbeat speed up in his ears, loud as thunder. "Did you know hungries need to feed on live, clean prey or they'll die and continue the cycle into generation two? Did you know that hungries can only pass onto the next generation by feeding off of other hungries, as the chemical makeup considers it to be biological cannibalism?"

A swallow, a blink. "No. They - back at the base, they always told me that hungries were the scum that everyone should kill at every cost."

"Not true," he snorts and turns his gun over in his hand. "What other shit did they feed you?"

The guy sits there for a few seconds, just staring at his footprints in the dirt, before continuing, "They told me that this virus is their fault and that if we kill all of them off we can finish the outbreak and continue living healthily. They told me - they told me that a nurse like me could never fight, and only the married men were worthy because they were bulky and muscular and weren't afraid of killing, like I am. They told me that's why they call it the rebellion, because the hungries are the rebels - "

In a blink, the boy's forearm is locked against his chest and his back is scraping against a nearby tree, head aching dully in the back from the impact. He's not sure what exactly he did to make the kid angry, but he's not certain that the cold press of a loaded gun is very soothing to most people.

"I don't think you get it, wise guy," Zitao shoots, practically daring him to make another fucking proofless remark. "They don't call it the rebellion for no reason. This is a cruel world, and only the strong survive. And in this kind of world, you kill to survive. You don't fuckin' suck dick to keep your head above water, because you'll drown halfway through. If you can't learn to defend for yourself," he spits the last line as he shoves his pistol into Yifan's gut, the man heaving out a pained groan, "then get the _fuck_ out of my way."

“Wait!” Yifan blinks at him and makes a move to stand, but Zitao’s hands come out before he can and they push him back into place.

“What _now_?”

Zitao stands and reaches for his backpack, zipping it back up and tucking his gun back into the main compartment of it, and slinging it over his back. Whether Yifan likes it or not, Zitao has a twelve-month trip to embark on, and no amount of annoying chit chat or disgusting pet names is going to make him turn back around.

Yifan, however tall he is and broad-shouldered he may be, pouts as though he were a little kid, “Where are you going?”

Zitao scoffs, “Away from you, obviously. What, you think I’m some babysitter?”

“Well,” Yifan looks down at the ground and lays a lingering palm on the gauze, on the sutured hole decorating his stomach just beneath the cotton and lace. “I don’t - really know where to go from here.”

“Home,” Zitao says impatiently with a hand hung on his backpack strap. “A hospital. A base. Anywhere that’s not here.”

“But I don’t know where the base is,” he says softly, ducking his head, and Zitao realizes that the guy truly is more lost and lonely than he had originally expected. “I was a nurse at the Nanaimo base for thirteen years. When the hungry revolt happened, the base was ransacked and we lost two hundred and thirty-five people. I managed to escape unharmed a few days ago and ran as far away as I could into the mainland so they wouldn’t find me, but I got lost and realized I had no food or any way to keep myself alive, so I started sleeping in the woods just to await my death. That’s when the hunters found me, because they thought I was dead and thought they could rob my body.”

“So let me guess,” Zitao starts, “you're out here because you don’t have shit to your name, right?”

Yifan nods, and Zitao presses his tongue to his cheek as he processes the information. “I know how it feels. Believe me. So I’m sorry, Yifan, I was a little rude to you.”

“It’s okay,” Yifan tells him as he breaks out into a smile, all teeth and dare Zitao say, _cute_ heart-shaped lips. “I’m just glad you found me. I don’t know what was wrong with me thinking death was the way out. I’m glad to be alive.”

And, there goes the little glimmer of respect and happiness he had inside of him. It turns ugly as he realizes just how _human_ Yifan actually is, how he’s just like every other regular human he’s ever met. They all treat living and breathing like godsends, while Zitao is living every day _hoping_ that it’s his last. He realizes just how much he dislikes regular humans because nobody understands him, nobody will ever understand him.

“You should go,” Zitao says bitterly and turns his back to him, but he can hear Yifan staggering behind him.

“But I don’t know where to go!” Yifan tries one more time, and drops his shoulders with a sigh. “Can I please just stay with you for a while? Just a week, just until I can get a gun and some food and I can find out where the others went. I promise, I’ll be out of your hair sooner than you know.”

The boy turns back to face him, bewildered as Yifan _begs_ him like a little boy. “How old are you, Yifan?”

Yifan blinks at him and says, “Twenty-six.”

Nearly half a third decade gone, Zitao realizes, and he’s still acting like he’s in trainers.

Truthfully, there’s nothing Zitao would love more than to have this fucking guy out of his hair and out of his life because all Zitao needs is himself, and he will only ever need himself because he is the only thing he can rely on in this world, but Yifan is a roadblock. Yifan is going to be a headache, he can feel it already.

He sighs through his nose and rifles around in his bag, before procuring a can of pressed, cured meat and tossing it into the guy’s hands before zipping his bag back up. “Alright, Yifan. You eat my food, you drink my water, and you take up _my_ fucking medical supplies, and you expect me to let you hitchhike like some kind of bum? You’re a real piece of work, aren’t you?”

Yifan flushes and gives him an embarrassed, crooked simper. “Sorry.”

“Fine,” Zitao says with a bite, and looks up at the taller man. “I’m heading to Winnipeg in search of supplies. Tag along, or don’t, but don’t ask me to keep donating you things, got it? I’m not a charity, and you’re not in poverty. You want something, you find it with your own eyes because I know for a fact you’re capable and you’re just putting up a weak front so I’ll stop what _I’m_ doing and kiss your ass. You’re twice my age, and you better start acting like it.”

The man frowns as Zitao stomps away to clean up his blanket against the tree, and calls out to ask him, “Wait - twice your age? How old are you?”

“Take a guess,” Zitao shoots back over his shoulder. “I’ll give you a hint, I’m not legal yet.”

Yifan shuts up at that because _wow,_ how is Zitao so young and yet so fierce? It’s weirdly attractive to him and he absolutely hates it because Zitao could be a fucking child for all he knows, could be twelve-years-old for God’s sake. “Can you at least tell me if you’re… a kid?”

“I’m fifteen, you dumbass,” Zitao says angrily, and Yifan’s shoulders slump just slightly. “What, upset you can’t rob a little kid, now?”

Then - Yifan smiles, and Zitao thinks he hates it more than when Yifan pouts. “You’re strong for a teenager. Brave, too. I like you, Tao.”

Zitao scrunches up his face in confusion and throws his blanket over his shoulder as he says, “Like me? What, you gonna ask me on a date now, fucker?”

“Hey, not my fault you’re so cute, peach,” Yifan snickers and Zitao stiffens into his step as his shoulders rise, and if Yifan didn’t know better, he could swear he had seen smoke begin to billow from the boy’s ears.

“If you're gonna call me that, then I'm gonna call you Bighead,” Zitao bites out with a frown and watches in bated glee as the man’s face falls into a look of shock and slight disgust.

“What? My head isn't that big,” Yifan frowns and threads a large, dirt-knuckled hand through his dark hair. “I guess I really should call you peach since your butt is shaped like one.”

Now is Zitao’s turn to rear back with a look of chagrin, eyes wide and jaw dropped, entirely flabbergasted that to a fucking _teenager_ somebody could be so outright _vulgar_ and _inappropriate_ and -

“You son of a _bitch_!”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

  
“Hey, Tao?”

Zitao looks over his shoulder in annoyance as Yifan picks up a bruised, soiled fruit from the forest floor. “Is this safe to eat? I’m starving.”

For lack of a better word, Zitao is absolutely certain he has spent more time in these woods and around poisonous berries and spoiled food than anybody else, and Zitao knows just what old, rotten fruit can do to you - but Yifan? Yifan is as dumb as tar, and Zitao decides it will be fun to play with him just a little bit.

“Sure,” Zitao says with a sickly-sweet, forced grin pressed to tight lips. “Knock yourself out.”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

I: Infected

(ĭn-fěkt'èd) _noun._

the state of having been contaminated with a pathogenic microorganism or agent.

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s absolutely nothing professional and domineering about the Yifan that trails behind him like a static shadow, boisterous and oafish as branches snap and leaves crunch, and Zitao’s peace and quiet fizzles under all of the accidental _fuck_ s and _shit_ s that the guy lets out, and Zitao is very quickly losing every last tendril of patience he has to his name. He would’ve thought that for someone his age and his living experience that he’d be at least a _little_ less cack-handed but against his better judgment, Zitao assumes that he has far too high of expectations for older men.

Seriously, the guy was a fucking _clutz_. Zitao couldn’t fathom how for such a charming fellow, the guy had two left feet and less-than-opposable thumbs. How he’d managed to keep himself alive with the absolute worst survival skills the world quite possibly might have ever seen, will continue to confound Zitao until the day he dies. 

He begins to wonder if maybe this is why Yifan is no longer with the so-called _prestigious Nanaimo directorate_. He wonders if maybe he’s not the only one that realized how absolutely useless this guy truly is.

“Hey, Tao?”

The voice behind him makes Zitao bitter on his inhale and his hands instinctively curl at his sides. “ _What_?”

The air becomes quiet between the two as Yifan takes a pause, and Zitao rolls his eyes because really, this guy is pathetic at best. “When will we get there?”

_Sigh_. “I don’t know, genius, I’m not a fortune teller.”

“Well,” Yifan says shyly behind him, “I didn’t know if you needed to, um - sit and rest, or something.”

Ducking underneath an overhung branch, leaves draped as though an Elven valance, Zitao glances over his shoulder and meets the man’s eye. “I don’t need to be babied by you, you know. I _do_ know what I’m doing, believe me.”

The man seems confused after this as Zitao picks up speed and adjusts his bag on his shoulders, and quickly rushes to where he can stand beside the teenager, and it’s then that Yifan realizes just how physically different they are. Zitao is ornery and strong-willed, sure, but the kid really only comes up to Yifan’s ears and his feet are a lot tinier than his own, and Yifan feels a forbearing pull in his chest as he wonders just what this kid’s been doing out here all on his own, and for how long, and who was selfish enough to abandon their own child like this. Yifan pities him even if Zitao doesn’t want to accept such a gesture.

“I didn’t mean that,” Yifan admits in a softer voice, and he makes sure his shoulders aren’t within Zitao’s personal space out of sheer respect for the kid’s privacy. “I just meant I don’t want you to get tired or hungry or anything.”

The words make Zitao’s heartbeat skip because of course he’s hungry, but Yifan doesn’t need to know that, and Yifan _definitely_ doesn’t need to know that Zitao isn’t even human.

“I’m _fine_ ,” he bites out, and he can practically feel the tension radiating off of the older man’s body. He is fine, he has _always_ been fine, and no six-foot walking hazard is going to change that. 

“Are you sure?”

This time, Zitao stops in his tracks and turns to him with fire in his eyes. “What part of I _don’t_ need your _fucking_ help don’t you _understand_!?”

To say Yifan was shocked by his outburst would be a gross understatement, and Zitao forces himself with all of his will to ignore the jolt of guilt down his gut as Yifan’s face completely falls and his eyes furrow, and Zitao recognizes the shadows of emotion on Yifan’s face all too well. Self-hatred. 

Yet, no, he can’t apologize because Zitao has done nothing wrong, he even _told_ Yifan that he didn’t want him abreast and yet - yet Zitao feels indignant, and he hates how it’s all Yifan’s fault.

“I’m sorry,” Yifan admits beneath his own dignity, and Zitao wishes he hadn’t, not ever. 

Zitao doesn’t answer, and Yifan begins to think that it really would be better for the both of them shall Yifan turn back and return to his fortune of certain death, but Zitao doesn’t say anything to him, and he wonders if maybe - maybe he has another chance? He hopes profoundly that he won’t fuck it up again.

Then - Zitao shocks both Yifan and himself - and hands Yifan his pistol. 

“What are you - ” Yifan begins but cuts himself off as Zitao rolls his eyes, and he assumes that the answer must have been obvious, then. Okay, note to self - ask stupid questions, receive stupid answers.

“What’s it look like, genius?” Zitao snaps but it doesn’t go unnoticed to the older man that there remains no bruise to his words. “I’m not going to be the one to keep your ass safe, you’re going to do it yourself. Break it, and I’ll break _you_.”

Beneath the sheer lunacy of the situation, Zitao’s heart begins to soften as he watches the man’s face practically _glow_ in mirth and he’s curious to know if perhaps Yifan never had somebody believe in him, either. 

Has Yifan been alone all this time? More so than physically, but Zitao speculates that emotionally - when did everybody abandon him?

“For me?” Yifan asks rhetorically as his eyes shimmer in wonder, and Zitao just nods.

“I have knives,” Zitao tells him flatly, “but that doesn’t mean I trust you with sharp objects. So, a handgun it is. And it’s my _only one_ , so don’t lose it. I mean it.”

This time, Yifan looks up at him from where he’s been inspecting the gun as if he’s never seen one, and he breaks out in one of the most sickly-sweet grins Zitao has ever seen. “Thank you, I - _really_ , thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get a big head about it, Bighead,” Zitao rolls his eyes and reaches into his bag for a knife and his thigh holster. “I’m not going to be responsible for a twenty-six-year-old.”

Zitao passes a holster to him and he looks down at the boy’s extended hand in confusion, eyebrows furrowed and hair in his eyes. Thin on patience, Zitao shoves him with a grunt of _you’re fucking hopeless_ and sinks to his knees. “Spread ‘em.”

Heat flushes Yifan’s cheeks as his heart stutters and Zitao lays his hands on the thick of Yifan’s flank, warm, _distracting_. “Wh - what?”

“Did I stutter?” Zitao asks. “I said spread your legs.”

It’s not exactly the most romantic position he’s ever been in, and it _certainly_ isn’t one that Yifan could have foreseen himself in just twenty-four hours prior, and he’s au courant as the seconds stretch on that the boy does not mean it in such racy context.

“Okay,” he grits out, forcing his pulse to cool. He watches with bated breath as those small, delicate yet battle-coarsened hands slide around his thigh and deftly strap the black banding around his pants and latches it off at the side, sliding the tail through the catch and pressing the attached fastenings into the straps with a _snap_ and Yifan watches, impressed, as Zitao has essentially harnessed him with a makeshift holster, and Zitao snatches the pistol out of the man’s hands by the neck and, slipping his fingers down against Yifan’s thigh to create space, slides the gun into place.

“There,” Zitao huffs when he’s finished and with a confirmative pat to Yifan’s calf, he stands and readjusts his bag. “Made you a holster so you don’t have to constantly have the thing in your hand. Trust me, it gets annoying.”

Yifan, however, is just as stupefied and awestruck as he had been seconds prior, and Zitao being thoroughly unsatisfied with his silence, shoots him a sharpened look and turns on his heel.

“I don’t have all day,” the boy says as he picks up speed and continues down their path, and it’s then that realization dawns and Yifan begins sprinting to catch up.

Zitao, although an interesting young man, has quite possibly the shortest patience threshold Yifan has ever seen, and one of the things the boy seems to hate the most is over-questioning, and Yifan - Yifan has _millions_ of questions, dozens of _who_ ’s and _how_ ’s and tens of thousands of _what_ ’s and _where_ ’s, curious by borne nature and simple in his heart.

“Thank you, again,” Yifan repeats to help break up the thickening silence. “Really, I don’t know where I’d be - ”

“ _Without me_ ,” Zitao drawls disinterestedly. “I know the whole song and dance by now, pretty boy, and it’s not impressing me.”

Yifan’s mood deflates at this because there are times in their banter where he feels as though he’s making social improvement, he’s progressing their barely-there relationship even if it’s just a little bit - but then Zitao backtracks, and Yifan realizes they’re back to square one before he even knows it.

“Sorry,” he admits and hangs his head. The gun lays heavy against his outer thigh, and rather than a protectant, it feels like a threat. “I’m annoying you.” 

“Oh, so you _do_ have a brain in there,” Zitao says with a dry little laugh, looking up at Yifan with keen eyes, and Yifan realizes that the kid is _grinning_ , believe it or not - corners of his curved, kitten lips swirled upwards into his round cheeks, cute albeit pitiless in the same breath. “Look at you, getting smarter with each second.”

“I’m not an idiot,” Yifan pouts childishly, and he wraps a large hand around Zitao’s upper arm which is _shockingly_ small in comparison to the breadth of his palm, and Zitao’s eyes widen dangerously as he realizes that Yifan is holding him. “Look, I’m a lot taller than you and I’m older than you. I _do_ know how to keep myself alive, you know. I’m not a degenerate.”

The boy’s lips fall in abhorrence, and with the fire of a beast furling deep in his chest, he yanks his arm from the man’s senile grip, “Get _off_ of me! Don’t touch me!”

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you, you know,” he jokes, and a sugary smile spreads across his lips as he soaks up the sight of Zitao ready to explode just from a simple touch. “You really have to understand that I’m not interested in killing you, really.”

“I didn’t say that,” Zitao whispers and grits his teeth, fiery, untamed. “I never told you to fucking touch me, and I never said you frightened me. Me? Scared of _you_? _Please_. I’m not a fucking kid, Yifan, no matter what my age is. Yeah, I’m almost sixteen, but I’ve killed dozens of men and hundreds of hungries and for what? To be told I’m just a child and I need to let the “big tough men” take care of it? Stick it where the sun doesn’t shine, sweetheart because I don’t need anybody to hold my hand. Now leave me _alone_.”

“No,” Yifan presses, and this time, his hands drop to his sides in a move of defeat. “I’m not trying to overtake you, and I’m not trying to make you feel small, believe me. I just want to keep you safe.”

“ _Why_?” Zitao challenges him, and Yifan realizes that the kid is procuring his knife as his fingers slip into his back pocket for a split second before they spin and twirl the knife out of its holder socket. “Why do _you_ want to keep _me_ safe? What’s it to you? I’m a stranger to you, I mean _nothing_ to you, do you understand?”

Inhaling, Yifan makes sure to exhale completely and relax his chest so he doesn’t overstress. “Because you’re - ”

“I’m **_what_**!?” The boy shouts, fulminating and resounding against the forest floor, and Yifan swears if he didn’t know better, he’d say the leaves on the trees even shook from the resonance. “Say it, Yifan! Please, _enlighten me_ because clearly I don’t know my own assets!”

“Nothing,” he says with hands held up, forgiving and innocent. “You’re nothing, Zitao.”

The wrong choice of words, he assumes, as Zitao’s eyes shift from angry to vexed, hurt in a way that makes his aura bloom into violet hues and Yifan’s jaw drops as he realizes just what he’s done, just what he’s said and how poorly he’s misspoken. “No, wait, not that - ”

“Ten seconds,” Zitao tells him with a locked jaw and whitened knuckles, palm purpling under the constricting grip around the knife in his hand, “you have _ten seconds_ to leave and never come back before I cut your _fucking throat open_ and leave you here to bleed out. Choose wisely, because you only get one fucking try, Yifan.”

The boy takes slow steps towards them and Yifan could laugh because really, a little five-something teenager threatening to take the life of someone much bigger than them? It’s almost as funny as the movie he saw years ago about the doll that came to life and killed everybody in its house. 

Zitao is cute. He’s dark-haired, thick-muscled yet lithe, and has the fire of a minx chained inside of him. Yifan can see vividly just how guarded the kid has had to become to keep himself alive when he’s out in this hellhole all alone, with only his bare hands and the clothes on his back, and yet Zitao never gives up. He keeps fighting, and although Yifan isn’t sure for what, Zitao has very clear intentions of crossing the country and it makes Yifan so unerringly, incongruously proud of him. He’s cute, and Yifan smiles.

The change in attitude, however, makes the boy falter and Yifan watches as the vice-like grip of his fingers slackens. “The fuck are you smiling for?”

Playful, he is, and Yifan quite likes playful. “How tall are you, Zitao?”

A frown, a cautious step back. “Why does that matter?”

“Just answer my question,” Yifan shrugs, and he smiles brightly as the boy’s cheeks flush.

Zitao furrows his brows because when was the last time he was ever measured? Last time he can recall, he was two hours into being ten years old when his mother pressed him to the doorframe of their bathroom and drew a little pencil mark just at the top of his head. _Five-one_ he had been back then. How tall would he even be now, nearly six years later? 

“I’on fuckin’ know,” Zitao shakes his head and regains his hardened stance, not letting Yifan break him down. He knows what the guy is doing, he’s toying with him to get him to let his guard down, he’s _testing_ him. What kind of moron does this guy take him for? Zitao wasn’t born _yesterday_. “Five-something. Why?”

Yifan simply shrugs and hides his hands behind his back, “No reason. Okay, I’ll be off then. I’ll get out of your hair, stop dragging you behind, and you can continue on your way not worrying about me like you’ve done all this time.”

“Uh,” Zitao snorts humorlessly, “I don’t fuckin’ think so. My gun. Give it.”

“ _Your_ gun?” Yifan asks flippantly, as he turns in his step and slowly reaches for his holster; Zitao wants a game? Fine, because Yifan knows just how to give a player what they want. “I seem to recall _you_ giving it to _me_ which makes it _mine_ , does it not?”

“No, it bloody _doesn’t_! That gun was **_mine_** , you give it back!!”

The boy lurches forward with both hands, unintentionally swinging the knife out before Yifan stops him with a hand on the boy’s wrist and raises the pistol in the air with the other. “And if I don’t?”

Zitao blinks, startled, confused, and his lips begin to open and close as if he’s wrought without words to use. “Wh - what do you mean? It’s _mine_ , it was given to _me_ and not _you_ so give it back!”

“Ah, but it _was_ given to me,” Yifan smiles cheekily and bends down to infiltrate Zitao’s personal space at his own level, a mockery as Zitao fumes in place and puffs his cheeks out like a riddled little rodent. “By you. So now it’s mine.”

“I’ll have you know, that gun was given to me by the District Sergeant of east Abbotsford!” Zitao hoists himself up in a swing of a jump, but Yifan is taller. Zitao reaches high, but Yifan is higher. “I was taught how to use it by the Sergeant herself! And **you** \- you _insignificant_ pompous **_brat_** \- take your _grimy_ hands off of my belongings before I slice them off!!” 

Then, Yifan finds a burst of satiny, perfervid bravery and with a voice softer than cream, he whispers, “Why don’t you make me?”

He does indeed expect the heel that smashes down onto the toes of his shoes and the outburst _why you little_ \- but what he doesn’t expect is the ripping, searing pain of the blade sent _deep_ into his left wrist, and he pulls back with tremors as the gun falls and blood begins to pour from the wound, dripping down his hand and fingers in rich, dark rivulets and dripping onto the parched soil below.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he gasps out as his knees soften beneath them and he has to dig his toes into the earth to stay rooted. “Fuck, fuck, why did you _do that_?”

“I warned you,” Zitao says coldly as he bends to pick up his handgun and places it into his own holster. “Don’t fucking toy with me.”

He watches in pure shock as Zitao walks away from him and returns to his fallen bag - _when did it fall?_ And with heavy breaths, Yifan makes an attempt to keep up but he doesn’t get more than a few steps before Zitao is spinning back around and screaming out - “ _ **Stop** following me_!!”

“Zitao, I’m sorry,” he blurts out in a rush of emotion, swirls of pain and disengagement flowing down his arm as the laceration begins to sting, as the skin around it becomes extremely tender and begins to bruise like a succulent fruit, “I - I was _joking_ \- ”

“I don’t wanna hear it, pretty boy,” Zitao spits at him. In his flurry of rage, his jacket has fallen from a shoulder and is now exposing his dark gray sweater beneath and the black cord that dangles from his neck, hidden well beneath the fabric. “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t make jokes. I don’t play games, and I _don’t_ babysit immature little pricks like you. So now, you blew the only chance you had of me saving whatever kind of shitstain you call a life and you can bleed out and _die_ for all I care.”

A sigh. “Tao, _wait_.”

The boy stops dead, grits his teeth so hard that Yifan swears he can see steam pouring out from the kid’s ears on either side of his head, and as he turns sluggishly back around and gives Yifan a look so cold he could swear the ground beneath him is lucky it didn’t freeze, he crosses his arms over his chest and leans his weight on one side a little, and it reminds Yifan of something very young and feminine and it’s adorable, really. “ _What_?”

He’s careful not to speak before he thinks because Zitao has very well proven that he is no stranger to his weapons and has no fear of using them on those even remotely close to him, so instead, he grips his injured wrist with his free hand and takes careful steps towards the boy. True to his word, Zitao doesn’t back away which helps clear Yifan’s conscience, at least, better knowing that Zitao isn’t afraid of him. 

He doesn’t stop walking until the boy’s nose is very nearly pressed to his chest, and he knows that Zitao is aware that he’s testing him again. He knows Zitao isn’t stupid, not even close. It relieves him, at least, to know that Zitao isn’t naive enough to be afraid of someone as warm-hearted as he.

Zitao doesn’t meet his eye, simply stares ahead right into Yifan’s chest as if he’s looking _through_ him, and Yifan actually wonders for a split second if Zitao perhaps has some kind of superhero ability to see through bodies. “Eight,” he says quietly, and he watches with a dimmed smile as Zitao’s eyebrows furrow beneath his vision.

In confusion, however, Zitao meets his eye this time, tilting his face upward so he can actually look Yifan in the eye and _wow_ , Zitao thinks, _the guy is fucking **tall**_. He wonders how he hadn’t noticed previously just how big their height gap really was. “What?”

Yifan inhales softly, before giving him a delicate, sweet, almost _romantic_ little smile that makes Zitao a little bit sick to his stomach, and he says, “Five-eight. You’re five feet, eight inches.”

Zitao frowns, “What are you, a human meter stick?”

This, however, makes Yifan laugh, warm and open and throaty as the man steps away and looks down at his red-stained hands. “I had a partner that was five-eight. Their nose came right up to my shoulders, just like yours does.”

The boy remains silent for a few long moments, where seconds turn into hours and minutes turn into years, and his eyes go almost completely blank for a split second before he places both now-empty hands on Yifan’s broad chest and shoves him away, out of sight, and out of Zitao’s hair. 

“You’re annoying.”

Or, so Zitao wanted to think, because while Yifan may be a handsome man with fair skin and warm, big brown eyes, underneath the shell of his dewy, unblemished skin, underneath the ugly, black mess atop his head that he calls hair that falls around his shoulders and behind his ears, and underneath all of the polished, cheesy, shit-eating grins the guy loves to sport - he’s a dirty, loathsome, good-for-nothing _swindler_.

It’s not every day that Zitao has to share his personal space with a six-foot freak with long legs and long arms and an attention span that will not quit, but it’s also not every day that Zitao has to share his weapons with the same six-foot freak. 

A swindler, because not only had he hoodwinked his way out of being left for dead, but he had cheated his way back into being the caretaker of Zitao’s one and only firearm - _again_.

“You’re no fair, you know,” Zitao says as Yifan trails _ahead_ of him, after several clamorous attempts at persuasion, and Zitao’s only resort to getting the guy to just shut the fuck up was to let him be the smart-ass he so desired to be, and let him protect Zitao as the first line of defense. “Shithead.”

“I know,” Yifan throws over his shoulder with a cheeky grin and a bounce in his step, flourishing and bright as Zitao broods away all his own behind him. “By the way, where are we going, again?”

Zitao frowns and reaches into his backpack for his map, “Winnipeg, just northeast of here. Should be about… I’d say… a forty-day walk. Including stops.”

“What?” Yifan says exasperatedly and slows down, turning in his step as his face scrunches in muted agony and he begins to walk backward. “Forty days on _foot_?”

Crossing his arms, Zitao deadpans. “You got a better idea, genius? What, you thought I was some kind of superhero that could fly you anywhere at your every beck and call? Well, _surprise_ , I’m not a Transformer.”

Yifan pouts and runs a hand across the top of his loose hair, smoothing it out, and says, “No, I just - I didn’t know it would take that long. Jeez, we should probably stock up on food, then.”

“Wow, and _here_ I thought you were the next Einstein,” the boy drones theatrically. “I figured we’d just starve to death out here and pick each other off like rotisserie chickens.”

“Ha-ha, very funny. I’m being serious, Zitao, I think we should - find a town or something and, and go scavenging for food, I don’t know.”

Zitao raises an eyebrow, half-impressed. “Alright, big guy. We’ll have lunch, my treat. Meaning I get to pick out the food, and you don’t get to bitch about it.”

“But,” Yifan says softly, and he stops walking and lets his hands fall to his sides, “what if I don’t like it?”

The boy simply sticks his tongue into his cheek and saunters over to him with slow, sure steps as he thinks it over for a brief period of time, before meeting his eye with a cynical, snide little grin, “Then you starve.”

Yifan - choking back laughter and wrought out with the sudden growls that his stomach emits - soaks up the statement and reminds himself that Zitao is not here for him, and he should not be here for Zitao. It’s a survival of the fittest, right? The whole, _only the strong survive_ thing. It’s as clear as day itself that Zitao gets a kick out of putting himself above Yifan as if the man is lesser just because he hasn’t had to be on the run as a child, but Yifan feels as though Zitao is overstepping the risk of biting off more than he can chew with Yifan’s humor. To say that the guy was beguiled, well - that would be an understatement.

“Okay,” Yifan shrugs with a nod and he can see how Zitao immediately adjusts his bag to begin walking ahead of him to be the one to sniff out their lunch - but Yifan is smarter, and he quickly steps into Zitao’s aerial view and slides the handgun into his holster and, with a greasy smirk, says, “but that means you gotta catch me first.”

With that, Zitao takes a single step forwards and Yifan practically bolts away running, leaves crunching thunderously beneath his feet and arms swinging back as his silhouette grows smaller and smaller, and Zitao lies in the dust of his own confusion and abhorrence. 

“Why, you _little - **wait**_!!”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“Here, fucker.”

Zitao tosses a can his way as they dip out of an abandoned gas station along a crabgrass-trellised road with patches of overgrown weeds and wind-blown sand. Yifan catches the food handed to him, and - in a moment of sheer gentility - had also offered to carry Zitao’s backpack for him so the boy could give his shoulders a rest. The action hadn’t gone unappreciated, however, but rather than thanking him with words, Zitao had given him a congratulatory shove and called it square. 

“I don’t want to hear any complaints,” Zitao tells him as they settle into a spot in the parking lot and take the opportunity to stretch their legs out, reclining back on their palms as they relax for the first time in a while. Zitao isn’t very pleased with how much physical space Yifan’s legs take up for him to be constantly up in Zitao’s area code with his big fucking feet, but Zitao ignores the thought and hands Yifan his knife. “It’s no filet mignon with garlic-herb butter, but it’s better than nothing.”

Yifan smiles to himself as he punctures the lid and begins to peel the tin back, thumb carefully lifted away from the edge and when he gets it open far enough, he brings the tip of the blade to his lips to lick the sauce away with a pink, deft tongue, and Zitao grimaces. “That’s okay. A little bison meat never hurt anybody.”

A raised eyebrow, a plastic fork. “You’re not bitching about it. I’m impressed, Yifan.”

“I’m actually not one to complain,” he says with gentle eyes, as he presses his fork into the can and procures a chunk of shredded meat. “What you think is complaining, is really me just being protective, that’s all. You know, Tao, sometimes you need to look through people better.”

Zitao snorts, “What’s that supposed to mean, wise guy?”

“Well,” Yifan says around a chew and lifts his hand to cough into it. “Your immediate reaction to meeting me was to treat me as a hunter. And that’s good! Keeps you guarded. But sometimes…” he trails off as he begins to stir around in the can, as if looking for something, “sometimes you just have to take risks and trust people even when you think you shouldn’t.”

“Are you trying to give me survival advice, Yifan?” The boy asks with a lilted voice, and if Yifan were just above deaf, he’d swear that voice had a dash of playfulness to it. “Because you should know, you’re probably the _last_ person I’d take it from.”

“Ah,” Yifan settles and smiles widely, and Zitao instantly scrunches up his face at the gravy all over Yifan’s lips and teeth. “That’s okay. I’m better at emotional advice, anyway.”

Slightly fed up and trying to enjoy his own space, Zitao takes a rag out of one of his zippered pockets and tosses it to the guy, “Clean your fucking teeth, jeez.” 

Slightly confused, Yifan takes the rag with furrowed brows but when realization dawns on him, he springs into action and begins running his tongue over his teeth and wiping his lips, “Sorry.”

“You’re ugly,” Zitao scowls childishly and begins stuffing his cheeks again with his food. “And stupid. And _smelly_.”

Unbenounced to him, Yifan finds Zitao’s diminutive banter captivating, so much zest in him and yet - inches, perhaps _miles_ beneath the surface - Yifan can see the beginnings of glimmering compassion, the most ebullient emotion he thinks he’s come across in the sparkles of Zitao’s eyes, in the pleats of Zitao’s demeanor and Yifan starts to wonder if he would ever be able to knock through the partition of Zitao’s emotions.

“Ugly and stupid, I might be,” Yifan points out snarkily, “but if there’s one thing I’m _not_ , it’s smelly.”

Zitao scoffs and says, “Don’t make me laugh.”

“I’m serious,” Yifan tells him, and for a brief moment, he debates actually scooting closer into Zitao’s personal bubble to prove his point, but considering Zito has had to stitch him up twice in the past few hours all because Yifan doesn’t know how to keep his hands to himself, he decides it wouldn’t be the most tactful idea he’s ever had. “I lived off of nothing but packaged crackers and military MRE rations for the past six years, so in that time frame, I had an idea on how to keep myself clean in areas where there wasn’t water readily available. Wanna hear it?”

The boy thinks it over with his lips twisted up and his fork scraping the shell of the can, “I feel like if I say no, you’ll tell me regardless. So, sure, Bighead. Enlighten me.”

Yifan beams at the opportunity and sets his can of food down, “Okay, so, you know how citrus fruit is used as a refresher? Like, you put it on things or in things to freshen them up?”

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those lemon-pit guys,” Zitao cringes, but Yifan shakes his head.

“Back at the base I was at,” he explains coolly, demonstrating theatrically with his hands, “we had a greenhouse - _huge_ greenhouse, I’m talking yards and yards of crops and herbs and fruit trees. It was our sustainable food source because we were so overpopulated that scavenging wasn’t an option. Well, a friend of mine at the time told the security that it was a stupid idea, that the infected would most definitely pick up the smell of the citrus and the leaf volatiles. Then, come the first spring - the plants all bloomed and the doubled the security at the stockades - but the ambush never came.”

Zitao rolls his eyes, “I’m guessing you’re expecting me to believe the infected left you alone just because your whole area reeked of lemons?”

“Exactly!” Yifan says with a clap, and the sudden noise makes Zitao’s body jolt. “So, I started hoarding some of the seeds and the herbs as best I could and I started bottling them, and I had a whole stash in my bag - but those hunters stole it.”

The man pouts and his shoulders slump, and Zitao can’t help but raise an eyebrow at the movement. This guy is almost thirty, so why is he sulking like he’s eight years old? 

Then, Zitao’s eyes travel from Yifan’s face down to his hands where a line of dark stitching resides, and then to the little ribbons of sand that Yifan sifts through his fingers onto the pavement below.

“Let me get this straight,” Zitao begins. “You left your base, you think I was born yesterday, you’re a modern-day Einstein with a knack for being not keeping your hands to yourself while also being incriminatingly bothersome, and you douse yourself in fruit juice to repel the infected. Is that what you’re telling me?”

This time, Yifan looks down in embarrassment as his lips curl, “Does it really sound that silly?”

A gasp, “And here I thought you were a genius.”

“Well,” the man laughs, “there’s the story of how I stayed alive until today. I, yes I,” he recites theatrically in a way that makes Zitao’s eyes roll, “the Einstein of our… _immediate vicinity_ … came up with an infected repellent that actually works. Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all day.”

Zitao quirks an eyebrow at the lack of reaction to Yifan’s little speech, at the sheer lack of sound from this so-called audience he’s envisioned in his head, and Zitao begins to wonder if that much citrus can cause dementia. “You done with your monologue yet, fruit boy? My ass is starting to hurt.”

“It does actually work, Tao,” Yifan tells him before leaning onto his side to slip his fingers into his back pocket, from where he produces a small spray bottle with a nondescript blank white sticker, and Zitao wonders how he hadn’t managed to see the shape of it across the flat of Yifan’s rear. “The reason I know it works is because I walked _through_ them on my way across the bridge to the mainland, I came face to face with them and they didn’t even care.”

“You know that’s not physically possible, right? Infected can _see_ , you know. Now you’re just being foolish,” Zitao rolls his eyes and begins to stand, but Yifan is to his feet first, raw determination glazing over his eyes.

“I’m telling you the truth, Tao,” he says in a low, ascetic tone. Zitao, on the other hand, is no more convinced than he was seconds earlier, as he places his hands on his hips and makes sharp eye contact with him. “Why won’t you believe me?”

“What part of you really expects me to believe this crock of shit?” Zitao asks dryly. “You really expect me to believe somehow you’re _completely invisible_ to the infected all because you spray lemon juice on your stupid self, and _somehow_ that’s the key to staying alive that we’ve all been looking for!”

“It masks the scent of human blood and replaces it with something agrarian to conceal the identity as human, and rather, the infected see you as one of them instead of prey, I swear!”

“ _Yifan_ ,” the boy states bitterly between terse lips, “I’m not here to play games with a big fucking manchild. If shit like this actually worked, don’t you think somebody else would have thought of it by now?”

“But that’s the thing! It’s so simple and unexpected that sometimes nobody thinks that something like this could work, but it _does_ , you have to trust me on this, Tao,” Yifan says with a hard edge to his eyes, and the man sighs and runs a hand through his loose hair. “I’ve walked through crowds of infected as quiet as a mouse, and not one of them could smell me, and yeah I’m not sure how they didn’t recognize me as not being one of them when they could see me, but something must have… I don’t know, reacted with their receptors and they didn’t make the connection between hunger and prey. Do you know how long I’ve been wandering around this area? I’ve been out of the base for five and a half years, meaning if this shit didn’t work, I would have been long gone. How many infected have you killed, kid? Hundreds? I’ve never laid my hands on a single one, and I don’t intend to.”

Zitao scoffs, “What, you some kind of bitch or something?”

“The official term is pacifist,” Yifan tells him in that typically snide way of his, with those big bright eyes and that shifty smile. “Meaning, I don’t believe in inflicting physical harm unto other people. Why’d you think I didn’t fight you when you stabbed my hand?”

A rush of guilt floods Zitao’s chest, but he forces is frigidly down, “Because you’re stupid.”

Yifan laughs and shakes his head, “No. It’s because I didn’t _want_ to. I have no interest in hurting you, Zitao, and I know you don’t trust me and maybe you never will, but I’m not a threat to you. I promise.”

_I promise._ Right. Zitao wishes those two words didn’t hold such vacuity and for once, just once, Zitao wishes _nobody_ would make promises because nobody ever keeps them, do they? His mother promised to never leave him, and what happened? He woke up in a hospital cot all alone, cold and insignificant because he had been abandoned and lied to all for the sake of self-safety.

“Don’t make me promises you can’t keep,” Zitao says without making eye contact, and he can practically feel the sudden shift in Yifan’s aura radiating towards him as Yifan worries. “I’ll kick your ass for it.”

“I don’t make empty promises,” he tells him, stifling and dark and almost melancholic. “I made a promise once, and I never saw that person again. After that, I vowed to myself that I would never lie to anybody like that ever again, Zitao. I wasn’t lying to you.”

Zitao pouts and turns away to pick up his backpack, leaving the opened cans strewn on the ground with the utensils and their wrappers, as the breeze kicks up and begins to shroud the rubbish in sand, “I told you not to call me that, stupid. Besides, we need to get out of here before any infected show up, so I really hate to tear you from your speech, but we need to leave.”

“But,” Yifan starts softly, eyebrows furrowed, “does that mean you accept my promise?”

Only having taken a few steps out into the soft sand curtained along the pavement, Zitao whirls around and crosses his arms over his chest and replies, “I didn’t stab you this time, did I? No. So get out of your feelings and get your ass moving.”

Finally, the cloud in Yifan’s gut settles and he slips the bottle back into his rear pocket. For such a young boy, Zitao seems to show affection much differently than Yifan has ever seen before, where insults seem to be terms of endearment and a refrain from outright violence shows compassion and benevolence. For Zitao to be so young yet so mature and complex, he’s just so… _interesting._

Yet, Yifan cannot possibly deny the flutter of interest inside of him, begging him to rush in with more questions and learn more about the boy with a temperament of steel. He wonders, in tandem, if Zitao has come across others like him on his path - didn’t he say he had? Perhaps that would be why Zitao accused him of faking injury for the sympathetic advantage, for the opportunity to rob or even murder him to get an edge, which begs such a stark question - if one time was enough for Zitao to decide that strangers were not to be trusted as a whole, does that mean he’s turned a blind eye to the patrons he’s come across after that, or were their fates something more severe? He wonders - have Zitao’s own two hands been responsible for immoral, clean deaths just for the sake of not wanting to take risks? If so, then what makes Yifan so special to even have been given one of Zitao’s own weapons?

“Which way do you want to go, genius?” Zitao asks suddenly, hair blown back and across his forehead in the wind, and Yifan meets his eyes - those dark, wayward eyes filled to the brim with suspicion, as if Yifan could possibly possess the ability to shapeshift at any given second and feast from him - and his shoulders go lax. “I figure I’ll give you the option this time since you seem to know _everything_.”

With a smile sweet enough to crystallize honey, Yifan adjusts the holster around his left thigh and steps ahead of Zitao to resume his task of manning the front line, “To Winnipeg, you said?”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

Their first official stop along the road that melts into the horizon, into the greens and blues of the sky and the grasses, fluid into the reds and oranges of the beginning streaks of the late-afternoon sunset, is what appears to be a partitioned town, small enough to be considered comical and perhaps for show and yet more rugged and vacant than old boots, worn through years of distress and left completely bare, buildings long ripped from their foundations and concrete long since crumbled and pulverized. Along the roadsides and along the fields, carved pathways map out walkways towards each building, as if something that was once a sidewalk or a colony of jumper houses. 

“This place is a dump,” Zitao comments, and Yifan could applaud him, really, for the sheer obviousness of the situation. “Looks like it’s been empty for ages. Then again, I wouldn’t really color myself surprised. Most everywhere is completely abandoned anyway.”

The boy takes stretched, careful steps through the rubble of something that resembles perhaps an old supermarket, inchoate and outstretched with roughened arches for doorways and ragged divisions of plaster for walls, the roof completely demolished and left in pieces, partial sunlight pouring through the vast cracks and pooling along the filthy, human-dirtied floors. 

“Was this the rebellion’s fault?” Yifan asks somewhere behind him, as he trails curious fingers along the pebbled, sharpened edges of the slabs of concrete that jut out as if speared for weaponry. “It looks like this was all on purpose.”

“I wouldn’t say the apocalyptic sense of the rebellion,” Zitao tells him indifferently, and the boy reaches for his knife from his front pocket, “as much as the communal desperation to take what they could get their hands on and use it to survive.”

“Ah.”

Zitao delves deeper into the structure on wary, heavy-toed feet with the notion that the roof could literally collapse on them any moment, and uncovers rows upon rows of blank, white shelving, shards of glass and plaster and trash wrappings spread haphazardly across the tiled floor, along with streaks and puddles of something wet, and the sight immediately worries Zitao because since it hadn’t rained any time recently, then what the hell would be wet if this place had been abandoned for years? “It’s been picked clean. Fuckin’ savages, leaving their shit all over the floor like this. Watch your step in here.”

Yifan’s boots crunch behind him on the crumbs of liquor bottles and what Zitao safely assumes is also the shrapnel from chemical vials. “Was this a grocery store?”

“Looks more like a pharmacy, in all honesty,” the boy says, and Yifan’s eyebrows raise at how aware and prepared the kid looks sauntering past aisles, knife in hand and knees bet, and if the world hadn’t been in extreme crisis at the very second, Yifan would have laughed and said that Zitao resembled some kind of video game character. Though, something tells him that Zitao wouldn’t have very much appreciated such a joke. “Don’t touch anything with your bare hands, either. I’ve got gloves in my backpack if you need ‘em.”

He frowns, “Why?”

“Do you always have to ask so many fucking questions?” Zitao asks gruffly, annoyance prickling at the edges of his voice. “Humans are frantic and clumsy creatures, and when people panic, things break and things spill. Judging by the fact that the floors are still wet, I’d say we’re walking through a pool of nitroglycerin and ammonia and whatever else could melt our skin off, right now. Asbestos, if we’re lucky.”

“That much in one place?”

Zitao sighs and turns the corner to his right, which to Yifan looks like a medical storage, “If there are chemicals that were spilled and left for years and somehow didn’t dry out, something is wrong and some kind of bacteria is present. They could have bred into asbestos for all we know, which is why I said, _don’t touch anything_. I’m gonna see if I can find any supplies in here. You stand watch. Got it?”

On command, Yifan grips the handgun strapped to his thigh and slides it out of its holding, “Got it.”

Yifan makes sure to keep his hands carefully placed around the neck, not wanting to slip up and accidentally set off the trigger, and Yifan wonders - briefly - if he’s even holding it _correctly_ since he’d never before today held a firearm, much less had anywhere near mediocre training with one. Zitao seems to be confident in his abilities to hold his own, but how did Zitao get to where he is today? Yifan wonders, did Zitao have some kind of practice with it before the rebellion got out of hand? He knows very well that there is no possible way for Zitao to have gotten used to the gun _before_ the rebellion, but how long has he been using it, coupled with those knives, to know how to draw them so skillfully?

He stands to watch near the back entrance of the pharmacy and scopes out the rest of the aisles, making sure nobody is hiding among the stark white shelving or crouching by a counter, just waiting for the right moment to attack. Yifan is sure he has nowhere near the experience with crafty hunters that Zitao might have, but the boy seems to dislike them an awful lot, so clearly they must be some real assholes.

“By the way,” Zitao’s voice echoes from the other room, and from how pin-silent it had been, the sudden increase in decibel makes Yifan’s heart jump, “I hope you’re aware that this whole _pacifist_ thing you’ve got going on, is not going to work. You’re going to have to use that gun on someone whether you like it or not, or you’re going to die. I’m not being your bodyguard here, so you’re on your own.”

Yifan sighs, “Okay, but can I only use it on infected? I don’t want to have to make eye contact with actual people and then kill them.”

Zitao snorts from the other room, and Yifan swears he can literally hear him rolling his eyes, “For the love of… _fine_. I’ll deal with hunters. You just… keep your eyes and ears open. You get me killed back here and I’m breaking both your legs.”

It’s a simple enough task, he thinks. Barricade the back door while keeping his eyes locked on the decimated front side, making sure nobody comes in and nobody goes out. He wonders what telltale signs of them approaching would be, other than the earsplitting shrieks of the alarm system they had back at the hospital base which he honestly thought was a _terrible_ idea, noise to do nothing but attract infected when the whole purpose of the base was to not attract infected? What kind of sense does that make?

Really, it was just a disaster waiting to happen. Although the base might have been big, the organization of the evacuation routines was mediocre at best, the solder confidence lackluster. Even Yifan knew that the makeshift militia at the very front line of the gates left much to be desired.

When the base had finally been ransacked, the infected practically barreled through the gates and Yifan and his crew of nearly sixty fled down into the underground tunnels beneath the base, which brought them to the very outside of the gates right to the water. When they’d all crossed the bridge together through the infected, Yifan had lost some men when they refused to take his serum into consideration, and when they’d all rejoined at the outside mouth of the bridge, they’d only been twelve. Since then, Yifan may be a little dumb and a little clumsy, but he knows the limits.

He makes a turn towards the back door and sticks his head outside the open arch, shivering slightly in the cool breeze as he takes in the vast drought far beyond the building, acres upon acres of barren trees and rocky soil and nothingness, and he soaks in just how beautiful everything is when the world is enveloped in total silence and peace, when there isn’t famine and death around every corner and when he can just appreciate the luminosity in the blue of the sky and the gentle sway of the wind in the trees. It’s a beautiful world, really, and he’d be able to truly enjoy living in it if he didn’t have to be afraid of it. 

Then - a ways down the field, near where their vantage point of view thins out where it seems as though the field winds off to the right - he begins to see the little specks of movement, and his heart skips a beat as he reactively readies his gun, repositioning it in his hands if need be. Zitao didn’t say to seek out confrontation, right? So does that mean they should remain neutral, or should they go forth and take them out?

From here, he can’t tell by the physical behavior if they’re hunters or infected, but he only sees a few and decides it’d be better to ask what their best plan of action would be. 

“Hey, Tao?”

He assumes that the kid is still ankles-deep in the pharmacy, and maybe he can’t hear him - but that wouldn’t really make sense, since it’s practically quiet enough to hear a pin drop, so for Zitao to not have heard him when he wasn’t exactly trying to keep it down, the kid would have to be deaf.

Part of him yearns to prove himself strong and capable and take them out by himself, without Zitao’s consent, and then maybe he’d begin to earn Zitao’s respect. After all, he should be able to fend for himself especially at this age, right? 

“ _What_?” The boy calls out a little bit far away, probably stuffed in the back room with his hands full in the shelving, and Yifan gets the withering feeling that he’s disrupting Zitao in his handiwork, that he’s burdening him with asking yet again another pointless question, and he decides that maybe he needs to start growing up and thinking for himself.

“Nevermind,” he says a little bit toned-down this time, and looks down at the pistol, “I got it.”

Truthfully, people shouldn’t be any harm to him if they’re nowhere near him and if they’re not an imminent threat to him, so by morality’s standards, he should keep silent and not antagonize them.

...But maybe he needs to.

Maybe _this_ is how he’ll begin to develop a thicker skin, will grow a backbone. Maybe he _needs_ to take risks in order to grow and in order to toughen up because although Zitao doesn’t need protection, it’s very clear that Zitao doesn’t enjoy having to safeguard him like he’s a pet without opposable thumbs. 

He decides he’ll keep an eye on them from the doorway, figuring that maybe it would be best to not charge right in like a heathen. After all, how is he to know if they even know they’re here? Yifan knows they won’t be able to smell _him_ , but they might be able to pick up on Zitao, and that worries him. 

He hears a muted _pop_ that echoes through the trees, a sound so far and yet so clear, and his heart skips a beat, “Uh, Tao?”

This time, the boy appears behind him with bothered steps and arms crossed, “What is it _now_?”

“I think there are hunters way down by the woods.”

Zitao blinks at him, hands going slack by his waist before he steps forward and shoves him aside with his elbow. “ _Move_.”

The boy forces him to step aside in the doorway as his eyes lock onto the same movement, just as Yifan had described to him, and one of the boy’s hands reflexively move to the holster on his waist.

“What should we do?” Yifan asks, and Zitao procures his knife. “They’re too far, right? Should we just ignore them?”

“They’ve got infected,” Zitao says, and another gunshot rings off in the distance, echoing through the sky and clamoring among the trees. “Stay down, they’ll be able to see you.”

Yifan does as he’s told and crouches in his spot, low near his feet as Zitao stands against the misshapen frame, back to him as he is silent, listening intently, waiting for a sign. Out of the eerie silence, Yifan hears the telltale sounds of a struggle and he watches as one of the microscopic shadows falls as a second comes with it, and a scream rips through the air, one that sounds too guttural and more like a groan, and Yifan finally realizes why Zitao is stalling.

“See that?” Zitao asks clearly beside him. “This is why humans are dying out so quickly. Trust me, it’s not because the infected are like a superspecies that can sense you from miles away. Humans are clumsy and loud and they rush in without a plan, thinking they have the advantage because they can actually think. They all die with that mind state.”

It shakes Yifan to his core a little bit, and he suddenly shrinks down from his plan to win Zitao’s trust over by being the knight in shining armor and taking out the infected all by himself. “So what do we do?”

Zitao inhales before letting it out in a deep sigh, “We can stealth on over there and hide until the last of the hunters are gone, and then we can take the infected out.”

“Why is it everybody is more afraid of hunters than they are the infected?” Yifan asks in a confused tone, eyebrows slumped. 

“Because,” Zitao begins, “the infected wait for a signal. Noise, usually. Explosions, gunshots, loud screams. Something they can hear, because infected can’t see from afar. Hunters are regular old humans and can see you from across an entire field, so if you let your guard down for even a second, a hunter can get you. The infected - well, they’re pretty predictable. They don’t move much without a reason to.”

Yifan looks down at the ground beneath his shoes, “So how do you want to do this? Do we hide in the trees, or?”

The boy rolls his eyes and pushes off of the doorframe, and the movement springs Yifan into action as he rises quickly from his feet and darts on thunderous steps to keep up, and Zitao’s frame stiffens in annoyance as Yifan runs to him, much too horse-like. “I stand watch, and you follow me. Deal?”

“Deal!”

“Ready yourself,” Zitao tells him, and Yifan immediately scrambles to assert his stance and reposition the pistol in his hands.

It’s a little too foreign, what with it having been some near ten years since he’s held one and used the same, nearly ten years since he’s put a bullet into a body. He’s aware of the ins and outs of a gun, but holding one in so long feels so new, like a freshly-accouched baby. 

“Right,” Yifan says behind him, and suddenly the pistol feels heavy, weighed down with the guilt of just what he’ll be using it on and what he’ll be using it for, and suddenly he doesn’t know if he can do this. He’d sworn off physical combat a long time ago for the sake of not wanting people to suffer, but don’t infected deserve it? They’re no longer human and no longer have emotions or feelings, so why does he care so much? Why can’t he just do it? 

“Right, I’ll - ” he struggles to calm his thoughts as he wraps his fingers around the grasp and slides a fingertip against the smooth claw of the trigger, and people have been _killed_ with this, more so than those who were already passed. Zitao has killed innocent people with this, Zitao has _hunted_ with this. 

“Are you coming or _not_?” Zitao all but barks at him in a forcibly-hushed tone, back to him as he instead stills to reach behind himself for his backpack, and the sudden exclamation makes Yifan’s hands jitter and the gun slackens and his heart skips and - 

_BANG._

Everything freezes, and as Yifan watches in utter dismay, his breath leaves him as Zitao turns around on his heel, slower than anything Yifan thinks he’s ever seen anybody spin, and gives him a look that’s all but _enraged_ , frenetic and blackened around the edges as Zitao _fumes_ and stomps over to him and **_yanks_** the gun from his hands, and - “ _What_ have you **_done_**!?”

Yifan’s breath rushes back to him and he begins to stammer, befuddled and regretful and confused. “ I - it was an accident, I swear, I - ”

“You _stupid_ , _dimwitted_ , _simple-minded_ _**dipshit**_!” Zitao shrieks in anger and shoves him by the chest, and it’s then that Yifan notices the prognostic squawking of the infected as he notices them begin to bloom from the trees, heavy, anatomized limbs dragging beneath them as they hunch and stumble their way, and Yifan’s pulse triples. “What have you _done_?”

“Oh my god,” he expresses breathlessly. “Oh my god, they’re coming.”

“Yeah, _no fucking shit_!!” Zitao barks, “You didn’t put the safety on!?”

Yifan blinks, “What’s a safety?”

“Oh, for _Christ’s_ sake - ”

Yifan feels a hand shoving him backward until his lower back makes contact with one of the cold, sharp shelves, and Zitao shucks off his backpack and throws it to Yifan’s feet. “ _You_ stay here.”

“ _Wait_!!” Yifan tries, not wanting Zitao to go it alone, but his stomach flips as he watches as Zitao dives practically _right_ into them, leaping onto the back of one and slinking behind another, ducking beneath the crowd for a brief second as Yifan watches as bodies begin to fall back, slashed wide open at the waists as their legs separate from their stomachs and blood begins to pour as Zitao’s knife sinks _deep_ into necks, into pallid, ashen flesh streaked with varicose lines and ruptured vessels, and Yifan can’t look away.

He’d never thought of murder as _beautiful_ before, so graceful the way Zitao moves without a second of apprehension, and as the last body twitches to the ground in a heap of deadened limbs and dark, protein-devoid blood, Zitao stands on strong feet, the last of the bunch, and pride blooms deep in his chest.

“We have to go,” Zitao tells him as he storms over and wipes his blade with the thick of a finger, smearing infected blood along his skin and Yifan’s eyes widen. “It’s not safe here.”

“Why are you doing that?” Yifan asks, but Zitao sends him a sharpened look that makes his throat tighten.

“Don’t ask me stupid fucking questions, you numbskull. It’s dirty. I’m cleaning it.”

Yeah, he got that part, but why is Zitao exposing himself _directly_ to tainted blood? “Isn’t that… not safe?”

“Didn’t I tell you to not ask me stupid fucking questions, Yifan?” He asks gruffly, aggravation pushing against his skin and making his veins bulge. “Don’t worry about me! Don’t worry _at all_ about me! _Okay_!? I don’t need it, and I _especially_ don’t need **_you_**!! You could have gotten me _killed_!”

Yifan pouts, “But I didn’t.”

“Look,” Zitao forces out, pinching the bridge of his nose as to not explode again. “I gave you _one simple task_ , and you fucked it up. I’m not here to let a fucking adult get me killed just because he doesn’t know his way around a fucking gun, _that’s not my problem_! You don’t like weapons? That’s _also_ not my problem. _My problem_ , Yifan, is _you_.”

A blink, “Me?”

“It’s like you’re fucking _five_! I give you _one_ fucking order and you can’t even handle that! _I’m_ supposed to be in Winnipeg by now, but you’ve slowed me down with your nonstop questioning and your good-for-nothing goodie-goodie attitude, and I’ve fucking _had it_! If you want to get yourself killed, _fine_ , but you’re not roping me along. We’re fucking finished.”

The man’s jaw begins to tremble, and if there’s one thing Zitao _really_ can’t stand, it’s a waterworks show, because first is the tears and then comes the sniffling and sniveling sobs and the runny noses and the shaking limbs and crumbled self-esteem, and Zitao has absolutely no patience for it. Crying solves nothing, brings back nobody, and helps people _never._  

“I’m sorry,” Yifan admits in a breathy, broken-down voice, and Zitao can hear how frayed the edges of his voice are and how close he is to tears. “I’m sorry, Tao.”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Zitao says, and picks his bag back up to throw it over his shoulders, “Sorry doesn’t bring people back when you’ve made a mistake you can’t fix.”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

Should he feel remorse towards dumping Yifan off like a bag of recyclables?

He sinks his teeth deep into the bird’s plump, round breast and iron spills over his lips and tongue. Each suckle has the tension seeping from his pores, as his body begins to feel weightless and the euphoria begins to kick in, and every last bit of frustration leaks from his limbs. It’s a blissful feeling, so floaty and so well-fed. It’s moments like this where he’s the most vulnerable, where he feels the most, where he often cries the most.

With a sigh, the limp fowl tumbles from his fingers as his arm slackens and he leans back against the tree, breathing into his high.

Maybe he’d been too hard on Yifan, he realizes. Maybe Yifan just has some kind of exponential learning curve and maybe he just needs extra practice and - yeah, no. Yifan is _inept_ , nothing but a thorn in Zitao’s side and an obstacle in his path. Zitao doesn’t need him.

It’s approaching evening now, the sky beginning to blur into scarlet and further into a violet-tipped crimson as the sun begins to sink, and Zitao yawns. He hadn’t realized how truthfully drained he was until he’d finally sat down and let his muscles relax and his body settle. Oh well, he supposes an early night in tonight won’t kill anybody, right? After all, he thinks he’s rather well-hidden in the mass of trees too tight for curious hunters to brave walking through.

It’s no later than a few moments after he props his head up on the small of his backpack and closes his eyes, that his body begins to weaken and he soon discovers himself fast asleep.

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

A ruthless, frigid breeze, rolling and whirling among the leaves; it’s awfully cold tonight, especially for fall.

The tremble in his bones deepens as his limbs curl up and he begins to shake agitatedly, frenzied as his feet tremble and his legs bend, arms scrunched in an attempt to withhold body heat, and his face twists in near-agony as the chill wretches him down to the core.

The grind of a zipper, the soft rustle of fabric and the warm, cozy touch of thick, soft heat.

Gradually, the shaking begins to stop.

“That’s it, just relax. That’s it. Good boy.”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

Zitao prides himself for his ability to sleep so lightly as to have the ability to be shaken and deterred should he sense a presence. It’s a gift from being a hungry, in which he can sense someone approaching from a mile away. He can smell the infected before they’re even near and can hear footsteps before they’re even audible. He prides himself for being a hungry, albeit having its moments in which Zitao wishes he were dead so he no longer had to prey on the living, but being a hungry certainly had its perks. 

So when he wakes later that night - he’s rather startled to find himself bundled up like a swaddled baby when he could have _sworn_ he didn’t take his blanket out. It hadn’t been cold enough in the evening for it, so when he’d finally fallen asleep underneath the trees, he hadn’t been chilly. And yes, he decides with a quick analysis of the fibers and the swath, it’s the same blanket. 

He sits up groggily, yawning and scratching at the back of his head as his eyes flutter to take in the world around him. It’s dark, quiet, but there’s the crackling of a fire nearby.

The sound springs him into action as he throws the blanket from himself and snatches his knife from his belt - when he notices Yifan sleeping peacefully across from him.

The man is propped up on one of the trees, arms crossed in front of him and legs outstretched, head lolled onto one shoulder - _sleeping_. There’s a fire crackling in front of him as if he’d lit it before drifting away, and Zitao frowns as he wonders just how the fuck he managed to start a fire.

He lowers the knife as the realization sets in that _Yifan_ must have been the one to cover him up last night, and _Yifan_ is the one who watched over him as he slept so nobody snuck up on him, should his senses fail him while he’s asleep. Guilt blooms cool in his chest as he recalls screaming at the man and making him cry, and now that he’s no longer famished and stressed, he realizes just how cruel he’s actually been. Yifan may be slow and may need a bit more explanation than people of experience like Zitao himself, but Yifan tries all the same. Yifan does the best he can to keep Zitao safe, to keep him out of harm’s way, to look after him as though a parent would their child. 

Tears prickle the back of Zitao’s eyes as he realizes how he’s been comparing Yifan to his own father, and he tilts his head to the blackened sky in an attempt to bury them further beneath the surface before they can be exposed. He won’t cry, not over something as trivial as this, and especially not because he’s still fogged up on the feeding high.

Yifan works hard, he realizes. Yifan took every beating that Zitao whipped his way, every insult, every attack, and he never faltered or fought back. Yifan was strong beneath the surface and soft along the outside, Zitao could see it in his eyes. The man’s been through things that Zitao doesn’t know if he’ll ever understand, but as someone who’s lost everything they ever knew including their own best friend, Zitao pities him.

He sits up and wraps the blanket around himself as he scoots a little bit closer to the fire, and he notices how the warmth of the flames illuminates Yifan’s face in the darkness, swathed in a delicate orange glow as the shadows along his nose and cheeks pull in the light. He’s a handsome fellow, Zitao decides. Yifan could be as dumb as dirt, but that wouldn’t make him any uglier. He’s got a long, tapered nose with soft, dusky eyelashes and pouty, pink lips, brows angled and wisped towards the end, and he decides that if the guy actually cut his gross hair, he’d be quite the sight for sore eyes.

He wonders if Yifan looked identical when he was a teen, or if Yifan’s beauty was ripened with age like a rare wine. He wonders what Yifan would have looked like at his age - would he have been shorter, perhaps nimbler? He wonders if Yifan’s always had long, greasy hair or if it’s just been too long between cuts, or if Yifan has always had that little scar along his smile line or if that was obtained during the rebellion. He wonders just how much Yifan has been through, and why it is Yifan is _always_ smiling.

Zitao decides to poke at the fire with a nearby stick, jostling the shards of wood around in what looks like a makeshift pit, outlined with large stones and a divot dug into the ground for the logs to rest in, and he stills because why didn’t he sense Yifan doing all of this? Especially when he was _right next to him._

The additional popping and snapping of the flames stirs Yifan, and Zitao’s heart sinks to his stomach as the guy twitches in his place and his eyes flutter gently open. It’s only a matter of seconds before he straightens his spine out and wipes at his eyelids and registers the sight of Zitao huddled in front of the fire.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Yifan says delicately, pushing off of the tree trunk and curling his lips up in a crooked smile. “Did you sleep alright?”

“Why are you here?” Zitao asks, and Yifan’s irises blur for a second as if he hadn’t been expecting Zitao to ask that, but then a soft smile stretches across his lips and Zitao begins to grow annoyed again.

Yifan frowns, however, and says, “Why wouldn’t I be here?”

“Uh,” Zitao snorts, “because I threw you away on the side of the road because I didn’t want you. Why else?”

“I still want to protect you,” Yifan tells him, evading the question entirely. “It didn’t feel right letting you go off alone like that. Even if I can’t protect you in combat, I’d like to protect you when you least expect it. Like last night.”

Zitao rolls his eyes, shucking the blanket a little tighter around him, “So I got a little chilly last night, big deal. You didn’t have to do anything about it, the cold would have woken me up.”

“But you didn’t wake up,” Yifan says with a shifty little smirk that Zitao absolutely hates. “You didn’t even wake up when I went in your backpack right beneath your head, or when I started the fire and had to gather sticks for it. You didn’t budge the entire time.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true,” the man says smoothly. “You slept like a little baby the second I came and covered you with your blanket. If only I could have taken a picture.”

“In your wildest dreams, asshole.”

“So I’m an asshole for covering you up when you were freezing and making sure nobody came by and murdered you in your sleep, chopped you up into little pieces?” He asks skeptically, and the question makes Zitao sigh and avert his eyes in annoyance. “Admit it, you need me just as much as I need you.”

“When _pigs_ fly,” Zitao responds spitefully. “What’s with you and not following orders? I tell you to do _one_ thing and you go behind my back and against my word!”

Yifan shrugs, “That’s because you don’t scare me. I don’t have any reason to stay away from you.”

This time, Zitao’s face falls in abhorrence and he picks up a rock from near the fire and tosses it the man’s way, “You fucking creep!”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” Yifan tries, lips opening and closing as he searches for words. “Look, just give me a second chance? Okay, I fucked up. I didn’t know what a safety was, okay? I’m sorry! But all I want is to stay by your side and help you get to Winnipeg. I’ll even go further if I need to. Cross the whole bay if I need to. _Please_ , Tao. Just let me help you.”

Zitao raises a brow because really, what twenty-six year old is really on their knees begging to protect a teenager? Yifan’s a fucking creep, a pedophile at worst, and Zitao won’t do it. “Look, I don’t have time for this.”

“Then can you _make_ time?” Yifan asks in a slightly strained voice as if he’s coming to his wit’s very end. “Why can’t you just trust me?”

“Because I _don’t_ trust people, Yifan,” Zitao spits, and Yifan slightly backs off in shock, not having expected to bring Zitao to the edge of nearly exploding. “I don’t trust anybody, and I don’t _want_ to trust anybody.”

Yifan blinks, and the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place as he watches Zitao’s self-esteem crumble before his very own eyes. Zitao has been hurt before, and by someone he must have loved a lot because the Zitao he sees right now is empty, hollow, nothing but a body insulated by vast dreariness and a heart of pure steel. Zitao may have his humored moments to him, but Yifan realizes that those have all been valueless.

Yet as hard and rough around the edges as he may be, Zitao isn’t any more deserving of being left alone, and Yifan won’t let him feel alone. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Zitao scoffs again and flicks a few more little rocks along the ground. “Talking doesn’t bring people back.”

“No,” Yifan admits softly, “but it _does_ help get things off your chest and it helps you learn to accept what’s happened and move on.”

Zitao gives him a pointed look, shoulders rigid where his head hangs between them, and he says, “You won’t leave me alone until I do it, will you?”

That familiar, shitty smile. “Nope.”

It’s a long story, and truthfully, Zitao isn’t sure how much he’s comfortable with revealing, but he knows very well that they might not even wake up tomorrow morning. Each day is lived as a gift from the heavens and Zitao would hate to die without all of the information he needed. “Alright, Bighead. My name’s Tao, and I’m from Vancouver. I was an only child, the best thing that had ever happened to my mother, and my father pretty much hated me. That good enough?”

Yifan shakes his head, “Keep going, Tao.”

The boy sighs, shoulders slumping, “ _Fine_. My mother and father fought with each other my whole life until my father died after going on permanent leave as a guard for the city gates. My mother was… well, she was _everything_ to me, but my father always told her I wasn’t manly enough, that I was too soft and it was going to get me killed. Ironic that he was the one getting killed.”

Yifan nods his head, listening closely, and Zitao does pause in order for him to make commentary, but it appears as though Yifan does better with listening than participating. “When he died, I wasn’t really bothered. My mother tried hiding it from me as long as possible, not wanting to sadden me, but frankly he was a real fuckin’ bastard to her so in a way, I was glad to have him gone. Then my mother took me one day when the city was raided and we ran out of our house, sirens blaring everywhere, and she went to take me to Sacrosanctum where they would keep me safe. I passed out and woke up five years later, and found out they’d been doing tests on me over at Sacro for five years and have been erasing my memory by inducing amnesia on me. Pretty fucked up, if you ask me.”

“Is that why you’re crossing the country?” Yifan asks. “To find your mom?”

Zitao sighs, “Yeah. The people at Sacro told me she went with a huge group of people over to the Iqaluit base which is _massive_ , so I’ve heard. I’m trying to get there to find my mother and ask her why she left me and why she couldn’t stay.”

Yifan nods, but his face has softened and Zitao realizes the story has actually touched the guy. Weirdo.

“So then after that,” Zitao continues gently, looking down at the bright flames, “I ran away from Sacro one night. Jumped the window, took off runnin’ with cops chasing me into the underground tunnels. They never found me, so here I was on the outskirts of Abbotsford when the District Sergeant found me, and she’s the one that taught me how to use weapons and gave me the blanket and the gun and the knives and everything.”

“You never had experience because,” Yifan starts, stretching out his words, “you were only a kid?”

Zitao sighs, and nods, “Yeah.”

“Is that all?” Yifan asks, and Zitao shrugs. _I’m also a hungry_ , he could say, now that Yifan has no weapons on him, now that Yifan can’t overreact and kill him. _I’m a hungry and I feed on living creatures to survive, and feeding helps curb my attitude and relieves my tension._

“Yeah,” Zitao lies. “That’s all.”

Yifan soaks up the information with a confirmative nod, lips curling against his teeth, and he lets out a deep, chesty sigh. “So I guess it’s my turn now, huh?”

The statement makes the boy scoff, and Yifan feels a gentle smile pulling at his cheeks, “What, you thought this whole _campfire confession_ scene was a freebie? Spill it, dickweed.”

Yifan snorts out a little laugh and says, “You’re a fan of insults, aren’t you?”

Zitao simply shrugs, however, but Yifan notices that a calm little grin has made its way to the boy’s curved lips as he leans back on his hands and presses a cheek to his shoulder, “My specialty, actually. Got a _lot_ more where that came from. Now stop stalling, tell me about yourself while I’m still interested.”

Yifan - possibly the most aggravating and nerve-grinding individual he’s ever had the displeasure of meeting - is irritatingly _theatrical_ when he storytells, using his hands to express his points and straightening his spine into a regal arch, as his eyes sparkle and his lips softly glisten in the low light of the fire.

“Well, I actually grew up in a city called Kingcome,” Yifan says with raised eyebrows, “but my parents were never there because, well, they both died before I could even realize they were gone. I was too young. So I lived with my aunt Yawen in a little house just on the edge of the town. When I was about eleven, my aunt moved us to Vancouver Island so they could help out at the Black Creek base. I was trained there for a few months before we moved _again_ to help out at the Nanaimo base. We were all very aware of the rebellion and what it was, but I worked as a nurse at the base so I didn’t have to be involved in combat.”

“You and your pacifism,” Zitao says with an eye-roll, and Yifan scoffs out a little laugh.

“Let me finish,” the man chuckles and his cheeks bulge a little. “Unfortunately, my aunt didn’t make it once we reached Nanaimo and she soon passed from an infection, and of course it’s protocol to sever the head from the body to ensure they don’t turn, so they… did that. I didn’t watch.”

Guilt pulls at Zitao’s chest as he realizes just how lonely Yifan really was, and just how similar they actually are. He hates how much they have in common because it means he has to actually bond with this idiot.

“So after that, I continued as a nurse, did nurse things, blah blah blah. Then when I was sixteen, I found myself a… _partner_ ,” he stresses slightly, putting emphasis on the word, and Zitao realizes Yifan must have had a romantic interest in this so-called partner. “We worked in intensive care together, and they were here for me when I was dealing with the grief from losing my auntie. They listened to all of my problems and didn’t think they were stupid or that I was too vulnerable. So we eventually planned to leave the base together and… hopefully start a life together.”

Zitao’s eyes widen because he knows what’s coming. He knows exactly what Yifan is about to say.

The man sighs, his demeanor beginning to deflate, and he says, “So then one day the base got raided, totally ransacked from top to bottom, so we actually fled underground into the tunnels beneath the base to basically crawl our way outside of the base to the water where the bridge let out. I know, sounds fake and dumb, I know. So we made it out, we were happy and all that, but half of the men we took along with us didn’t make it and the infected got to them.”

“Don’t tell me it’s because of your stupid fruit juice,” Zitao groans, and it makes the man laugh.

“You’d be surprised,” Yifan comments cheekily, _flirtatiously_ even, and Zitao has to resist smacking him. “Then past the bridge was totally and completely barren, like, nobody to be seen for miles. So eventually we decided to head south into America to see if maybe they had more survivors, maybe they had more supplies, more bases, more of a hold against the infected. Well, we turned up completely short, and when I decided the journey was pointless and we should return home, my partner… didn’t exactly… _make it_.”

Zitao frowns, eyes trained downwards in a troubled, pensive gaze. “You lost them, didn’t you?”

And Yifan - Yifan just grins what is not really a grin, more a little quirk of the corners of his lips, but there’s woe in those eyes and Zitao’s heart falters.  “Well, we found out that America wasn’t, in fact, untouched, and we decided to turn back around to return to the island. We figured at this point, okay, maybe the island would be safer because it’s smaller and more secluded, and the chance that everybody had fled and crossed the bridge by then was massive.”

“They got trapped,” Zitao says softly, “didn’t they?”

And what hurts more than anything is Zitao knows the answer isn’t required when he notices the tears built up against Yifan’s waterline. “Yeah.”

The man falls silent, and it nearly shatters Zitao’s countenance as the man lets out a sniffle, and tilts his head to the sky to ward off oncoming tears. 

“It was my fault,” he admits softly, voice crackling around the edges, and Zitao hates it. “It was the bridge again, we - they came through the gates because we hadn’t bolted them back up, and they could only smell _them_ , and there were just - _too many_ , and I wasn’t - I was _nonviolent_ , Tao, my own fucking beliefs got my partner killed.”

Then it’s out. Zitao can see right through him like he’s a glass windowpane and can see how his emotions are pouring straight out of him, as his chest winds in an ugly swirl of guilt and agony, and Zitao hates the way this makes him feel inside.

“So, I’m sorry,” Yifan admits. “I’m sorry for stalking you, basically, but I just… I had to make a promise to myself that I would never let anybody die because of me ever again. That’s why I don’t fight, why I don’t kill, and why I won’t leave you alone. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” Zitao comments quietly, gently, and Yifan stills. “Don’t. It’s okay.”

It’s okay. It really is, because it’s not Yifan’s fault his stupid idea actually _worked_. It’s not Yifan’s fault that humans are too stubborn and humble to believe that a stupid little concoction of herbs and fruit could mask the scent of human to the infected. Zitao knows that it’s not Yifan’s fault because people are dead since Zitao didn’t fight back, either.

“Sorry, I don’t usually,” Yifan laughs weakly, clearly trying to lighten the despondency of the situation, “I don’t usually do this.”

“I know,” Zitao tells him, and it helps ground Yifan a little. “You did what you had to do, and life isn’t fair. It’s never fair. We lose people and it fucking sucks, but life isn’t fair.”

Yifan sighs as he calms himself back down, and he brings his knees to his chest as he begins to poke at the fire with a branch, “Is that why you never cry?”

A nod, a depressing confession. “Yeah.”

“Because the tears won’t bring people back...”

He sighs, “Exactly.”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“So about that thing you said last night,” Zitao begins as he crouches and slides open the cabinet in front of him, glancing in briefly before closing it as he comes up empty, “about you being a pacifist?”

Yifan steps over to him, hair tied back with an old shoelace and knapsack of his _very own_ , stolen off of a decomposing body courtesy of the one and only Huang Zitao, slung across his back. After talking last night, they came to a mutual decision for Yifan to follow him to Winnipeg and for Zitao to teach him how to fend for himself in the most non-violent yet violent way possible, and although uncomfortable, Yifan was willing.

Zitao picks up the long strand of wood, arched prettily and strung tightly with a glistening, slightly-withered string, and he slides a fingertip along the glazed thread, watching as it pulls with the press of his hand and springs back slightly when he lets go, “How’s a bow and arrow sound?”

Yifan takes the apparatus in his large hands and Zitao watches in bated delight as the man’s face practically lights up as the realization that he will never have to be close to his victim when killing, and it’s really the best Zitao can do for him. “It sounds _perfect_.”

 

 

 

 

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	4. Chapter 4

 

 

 

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I: Infected

(ĭn-fěkt'èd) _noun._

the state of having been contaminated with a pathogenic microorganism or agent.

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It takes a lot of coercion and a lot of Zitao brushing his judgment aside to get Yifan to kill his first infected.

They’re out on the fringes of a big city, roads mulled over with moss and buildings snaked with vines and overgrown foliage. It’s beautiful, Zitao thinks to himself, how nature completely took over the world they live in, irreversibly whence blooms have arisen from the cracks and life has grown through the rubble of living distortion.  

He makes sure that it’s only the one body, that Yifan is not in any imminent danger of being bombarded, and if Yifan is nervous enough to be mentally shitting himself, he does a good job of hiding it because Zitao wouldn’t have even noticed otherwise. 

He has them up high on the second floor of what Zitao assumes used to be a wealthy home, where Yifan can be high enough off of the ground that if he were to draw attention to himself, the infected would likely not be able to maneuver their way up the staircase. It’s a process, for lack of a better word, getting Yifan to just shut the fuck up for a minute with his petulant whining, and Zitao takes his wrists in his little hands and positions the bow into the man’s palms, one resting on the middle of the curve, thumb pressed to the welded bend, and the other empty for an arrow.

“Slide it along the hitch here,” Zitao instructs, curling Yifan’s fingers carefully behind the tail of the arrow, and Yifan watches as Zitao slips the rod over the hitch and lines it up against the string, and carefully curves Yifan’s index finger over the neck of the arrow just beneath the head. “You control the arrow with your knuckles up here. Keep it still. You want the string to catch on here so it pulls - like this,” he demonstrates with a slow little tug, and Yifan nods beside him, following along. “The further you pull back, the more force you’re gonna put behind that arrow, and the further it’s gonna go. You follow?”

Cautiously, he releases his hold on Yifan’s fingers and watches as the man’s composure immediately crumbles, inexperienced and absolutely _hopeless._

“I don’t know,” Yifan blurts out in an anxious rush. “I don’t know if I - I don’t know - ”

“ _Yifan_ ,” he warns, and the man’s gaze falters. “Don’t pull this shit with me. I can’t just whip up arrows for you willy-nilly, Robin Hood. Besides, it’s already dead, what’s it matter? It’s you or them, Yifan.”

The statement doesn’t seem to help much, and rather only seems to add to the pressure, as Yifan’s face contorts in agony for a blessed second before melting away into something far more troubled, “Will they feel it?”

Zitao sighs, and the remark sticks to his skin and leaves him grimy, and while Zitao is fully aware that infected carry no emotions or memories for those around them, they do react when injured, and somehow, Zitao distantly feels as though lying to Yifan and leaving him entirely unprepared would hurt him more than being honest and informing him about the truth and preparing him for what to expect, “Yeah, they - they might.”

Yifan’s eyes blur, then, the shadow of anguish pooling over his features as he says, “For how long?”

That is the imperative question, isn’t it? For how long along the breadth of dying is one aware? How long before the darkness envelops all does one feel the pain and the sorrow? Zitao stutters because even he who had inflicted the mantra of demise on hundreds of breathing bodies has not been able to calculate the exact moment they take their last breath, the moment their sensory capabilities finally numb and the moment they reach painlessness. 

“I don’t know,” Zitao admits from the depths of his heart, breathily laced along a sigh as he confesses the one and the only thing he doesn’t know. “A few seconds probably.”

Yifan is quiet beside him, breath held still before he lets it out in a weak little shudder, “Not long?”

The boy shakes his head, “Not long.”

To him it wouldn’t matter if they felt it for seconds or for hours, but for Yifan, it’s the difference between chastity and sacrilege, between life and death, and Zitao knows that he needs to take a more holistic approach to Yifan’s reason and compromise for how lesser of a survivalist the man actually is in comparison to a teenager with a pistol and military-grade gear. Yifan is practically infantile, seeking the grasp of a protectant when running from fear rather than facing it head-on.

“Okay,” Yifan mutters lowly, voice lilting in fear. He begins to slide the neck along the hitch, catching the string on the hook and pulling back, careful, unsteady. Zitao can tell the man’s fingers are off-kilter, uncoordinated and curled uncomfortable, index pressing onto the rod and whitening from the pressure.

Slightly irritated, Zitao pulls on the length of the guy’s forearm and Yifan startles, looking at him with bleak, widened eyes as if impassioned, as if pained. “Not like that,” Zitao says gruffly and he lifts each of Yifan’s fingers from the body of the arrow and places them securely on the knot at the base of the tail. “Hold it here, that way you don’t crush the leaves and you get a better grip on it this way.”

He could laugh, really, at the way Yifan flushes as he touches him, blushing a warm, peachy pink and _really_ , you’d think the guy was a high-schooler and not approaching his third decade. Yifan composes himself then - albeit slightly - and pulls back along the hitch, the bow flexing under the tension of the string. 

“See that?” Zitao comments softly, watching as Yifan grows accustomed to the tool and familiarizes himself slowly. “Your string should feel taut, so this way when you release it, the force from the tension will send it forward, Then, when you’re ready to aim, line the arrowhead up with your line of vision, and hold the bow up high. _Like this_ ,” he adds quickly before wrapping both hands under the points of Yifan’s elbows, pushing his arms up into position with his right bent and up above his waist and his left outstretched with the bow in grasp. “You gotta hold it like you mean business.”

Seconds fall away before the man turns to him and says, “But I don’t mean business.”

“ _Yifan_.”

A sigh, “Fine. Sorry.”

“I can’t do it for you,” Zitao tells him because he knows that Yifan is capable, and for some weird reason it seems as though the only rationale Yifan actually has for the guy to commit homicide is to do it for Zitao’s sake, and the notion that he is essentially living _for_ him is a little bit sickening. “I told you I’d let you stay if I didn’t have to be your bodyguard.”

“I know,” Yifan replies, and peers down below at the single infected wavering in standstill, at the acres of worry that float between them, at the first step in a million towards surviving, towards _thriving._ “I know.”

In no way is learning to properly wield a weapon in less than ten minutes _easy_ , but Zitao is more than prepared to have to finish all of Yifan’s kills for him, and maybe that’s okay because Yifan doesn’t have to witness the release of death before his very own eyes, and frankly, as long as Yifan is _trying_ and not getting uselessly in the way, Zitao doesn’t really give a shit about how terrible Yifan’s aim is.

Of course, that is, until the first one makes his thumb slip and the arrow goes tumbling out of his grip and off of the balcony, clattering on the ground below. The infected squawks and jerks its head towards the sound, and Yifan’s pulse speeds.

“Okay, well, not like that,” Zitao sighs and reaches behind himself to produce another arrow from his unzipped backpack. “You gotta move your front grip once you’ve got the arrow placed where you want it, this isn’t billiards. Stay calm and pull back farther. You have to have tension in that string.”

“Sorry,” Yifan repeats shamefully as he takes the new arrow, and Zitao rolls his eyes. He slides the arrow along the hitch and lines it up and pulls. This time, the string pulls taut and the bow flexes into a deeper bend, and for a moment Yifan’s movement stutters in fear that the bow is going to snap, but Zitao seems to know his way around a bow, right? If Zitao says it’s safe, then it must be safe enough for Yifan to use. Right?

“Try it again,” the boy coaxes gently, and Yifan breathes along a calm exhale. “Stay calm. You’ll miss if you panic.”

_Stay calm. Don’t panic._

The arrow whirs as it springs from his fingers and Yifan watches in barely-abated glee as the direction of the arrow shifts and the head plunges into the soft tissue of the body’s neck, and the resounding gasping squawks only serve to heighten his pride. He did it - he _did it_ , he actually _used_ a _weapon_! He realizes among his pride that this means he can finally protect Zitao the way he wants, and can finally make himself proud the way he wants because he did it.

“There you go,” Zitao exhales as he moves forward to rest his elbows on the ledge, and Yifan lowers his bow. “What’d I tell you, tough guy?”

“I did it,” Yifan repeats quietly as if utterly astonished with himself, and for once, Zitao doesn’t blame him. “I - I did it.”

“I heard you the first time,” the boy sighs approvingly and reaches down to remove his knife from his belt. “Good job. Now let’s go finish it.”

This time, however, Yifan frowns and looks at him with a confused gaze, “Finish it? That didn’t kill them?”

“You need to incapacitate the brain for that,” Zitao comment as he hoists himself from the railing and begins to walk away, causing Yifan to turn on his heel in an attempt to follow. “You know, sever the intercrural network between the brain and the spinal cord. And don’t worry, even I wouldn’t expect you to be able to strike them that perfectly so easily. Shit takes practice and impeccable aim, neither of which you have.”

“Oh,” Yifan says softly and looks down at the unstressed bow in his hands. “I’m sorry.”

Zitao turns on his heel and gives him a flippant shrug, and the air between them thins out genially as he waves him over and Yifan quickens his pace to descend the staircase to the ground floor. Concrete crumbles beneath their toes like drought to terrain, causing Yifan to stumble just a little bit when he grabs onto the wall as a stair gives out beneath his weight and makes him slip. “Careful,” Zitao says ahead of him as he reaches the floor, safe and sound on level ground, and he raises an eyebrow as Yifan practically glues himself to the truss of the wall as to not take another risky step.

“The world wants me to die,” Yifan warns him as he presses the weight of his toes down on the next step which remains sturdy underneath his gait, and Zitao sighs and faces him.

“Oh trust me, we _all_ want you to die,” Zitao rolls his eyes and stands in petulance as Yifan grows and steps, as he ages along the foreboding of the wall, signifying he is now leaving a lesser part of him upstairs and is treading out into the sward of maturity. “If it weren’t for the fact that you are quite possibly the most useful yet bumbling idiot I’ve ever met, I would have offed you myself. Consider yourself lucky to be alive.”

Messily, Yifan trudges down the rest of the stairs at lightspeed, anxious to reach safety and when his feet meet the sturdiness of the earth, the steps behind him crumble loudly to the ground and cause his heart to rabbit as he turns. “Looks like nobody’s going back up there, huh?”

Zitao snorts at this, slightly humored and plenty disinterested, “Guess not. What a shame we couldn’t leave you up there, either,” and with a stoic glance at the man, delight fills him as he sees Yifan pouting at his statement and looking sadly at the staircase, downtrodden. _Big baby._

Sighing, the boy slides his backpack straps from his shoulders and sets it on the ground to dig through it briefly, and Yifan awkwardly holds onto the bow as he debates just where he’s going to put this big fuckin’ thing, such a lightweight yet spacious weapon, when Zitao stands back on two feet and brushes the fiber of his denim jeans. “Turn around, moron.”

Yifan falls briefly into confusion before turning as he was instructed, and he doesn’t get much time to debate why Zitao wants him turned when he feels weight tugging at his backpack, and his gut does a little startled leap when the boy says, “Hand me your bow,” and Yifan, just as obligational as ever, lifts the waxed curve of wood over his head and within seconds he feels the pull of Zitao’s grasp on the weapon, and Yifan relinquishes it.

Behind him, Zitao could technically do whatever in the world he pleased. Steal the bow he found and leave Yifan defenseless in a petty move with only clothes and some water to him, or slide the handgun from his belt holster and put one right in the middle of Yifan’s back, right between the shoulder blades, or he could shoot him in both ankles so Yifan is helplessly immobilized and can’t stop him from robbing him blind and leaving him for dead - but Yifan still can’t help the surprise when he hears the sound of zippering and the slight twang of the bowstring, and the little huffed swear behind him of _you stupid simple fucker, knock it off, you_ , and within seconds - Zitao returns to the front of his body and Yifan’s pulse cools. “There, hooked it to your bag for you. It’s a bow so don’t be stupid and act violently with it, it’ll snap and I’ll leave you to die out here.”

“Can I pull it out when I need it?” Yifan says, and Zitao grimaces a little bit before him at how bizarrely gross the statement sounds. 

“Should be easy enough,” Zitao goes with as he places his hands on his hips and looks Yifan unimpressively up and down. “I’ll make you some arrows and I’ll put them in the hold with the bow, alright, Prince Charming?”

“Oh, you have to teach me that!” The man says as Zitao leads them out the side entrance of the massive building and onto the cracked pavement that waits outside. “I never knew how to make arrows, can you teach me? I mean, I’m probably gonna have to know ‘cause this is my bow and all.”

“What do you think this is, Bighead?” Zitao stops where he’s been stepping carefully over rubble and cracked stones and raises an eyebrow at him. “You think this is some free convention where all you need is a wristband and you can take a class on making arrows?"

Yifan frowns and says, “Well, no, but - it would be useful for me to know, you know? I mean, what if something happens to you and you can’t - ”

“What would happen to me, Yifan?” Zitao asks him, the shadow of a smirk outlining his lips. “Me? Do you know how many people have tried to kill me, Yifan? Do you have any idea? Me, the one that nobody can catch - the _Sacro Runaway_. Are you sure you are asking a proper question, Yifan? Because if so, please, tell me - who is there for me to be afraid of?”

The man stills at this, hands faltering by his sides as an ugly swirl of emotion begins to worm its way into his chest cavity, suddenly piteous and sorrowed for this boy’s past misfortune. Yifan wonders what it is like to live so brazenly, to feel no fear at all, and he wonders - perhaps, was Zitao _always_ so unafraid and so… soulless? “Are you… really not scared of anything?”

“Of course not,” Zitao deadpans, dirtied hands idle in the loops of his waistband. “What is there to be scared of? Nothing can kill me.”

Possibly Yifan’s only pet peeve so far is that Zitao often speaks in riddles, confusing words patched together into senseless phrases. It’s a sign of intelligence, something grander than Yifan himself carries, and Zitao is an _awfully_ smart fellow for so young, so deceptive and yet so open, driven by hatred and yet desire, and Yifan is so fascinated by the presence of this walking paradox.

“What do you mean nothing can kill you?” Yifan asks skeptically, all of a sudden feeling strangely empty and endangered. Is Zitao keeping something from him that he should know about?

“It’s exactly what it sounds like, how many times do I have to tell you that? Anything that tries to kill me dies before it even has a good chance, now - stop asking me so many fucking questions.”

Yifan drops the conversation, callow and uneasy and he instead opts to follow Zitao back around to the front of the house, where Zitao walks ever so casually as he approaches the aforementioned infection and drives his knife deep into the side of its temple, and Yifan can’t help but avert his eyes and grimace at the sound of unconscious pain and the sight of dark, protein-devoid blood. He supposes maybe with more practice he’ll be okay with witnessing death before his very own eyes, but for now, he enjoys shying away and keeping himself sane as long as he possibly can. After all, one of them needs to have a rational mind.

It’s just another kill, to Zitao, just another body to take care of, and just another infected in the way, but for Yifan it’s a reminder that he’s not good enough. For Yifan, it’s a reminder that he will always need someone to hold his hand and finish his meals for him and finish his _kills_ for him, and for Yifan, it’s a reminder that he will never be someone like Zitao - strong-willed, intelligent, and carefree. 

For Yifan - it’s just another thorn in his side because the way life has designed him to be almost made it so he was meant to die in the rebellion, so he wasn’t supposed to survive and be one of the ones to find a cure. With how nonplussed Zitao lives his life, Yifan wishes that he could do the same.

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“So for arrows,” Zitao begins, heaving his backpack onto the ground and lifting his armful of wood onto the work desk. They stowed away in an old storage garage and had found a rusty, overused desk which Yifan proposed could be a place for them to sit down and make Yifan’s arrows, “you obviously need wood. Balsa wood works well because you can find it around rivers and lakes and whatnot, and it’s also extremely easy to shape and carve. So in case your stupid ass accidentally breaks the bow, you can make another one out of balsa wood. Neat.”

Yifan’s parked just a few feet away, criss-cross applesauce as he sorts through the wood and uses a pair of steel tweezers from Zitao’s possession to pry the ticks from the hunks. Tired of his whining and insolent pouting, Zitao had given him something to do so he was no longer useless and full-on helpless. 

“Use a knife,” Zitao instructs as he slides his blade from his belt, and Yifan’s attention snaps upwards to him, hands wrapped around a strand of the wood. “Always use a sharp knife and always carve the wood when it’s wet.”

“Why?” Yifan asks absentmindedly as he places another tick into a tin can that Zitao found near the work desk. 

“Same principle as carving metal,” Zitao instructs as he takes one of the clean pieces of wood and seats himself on the ground across from Yifan so they’re only a mere few feet away, and Yifan blinks in surprise as he registers Zitao sitting _with_ him. “When it’s wet, it helps prevent it from splintering and cracking. Because metal isn’t porous and wood is, though, it also helps to soften the wood to make it easier to carve. And also you won’t get all that sawdust.” 

“But - ” the man starts, eyebrows furrowed, “I thought it was always better to carve wood dry.”

“Well, it is if you have power tools,” Zitao tells him, “but in case you haven’t noticed, the country really doesn’t have any electricity or running water. Besides, you go ahead and carve a dry ass piece of wood and tell me you won’t get splinters.”

“Ah,” Yifan says before smiling wide, lips curling to expose his teeth and Zitao rolls his eyes. “You’re right.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Zitao stresses. “You don’t need it to be perfect but try to get it as smooth and rod-like as you can, but make sure to keep it thin. I’d say no thicker than maybe your pinky nail. The thinner it is, the less it weighs and the better it’ll travel.”

Yifan sets down the hunk of wood he’d been picking at and looks up to see Zitao handing him his knife, and Yifan falters in surprise. Is Zitao serious? 

Impatient and grumpy, Zitao asks, “What are you looking at? Fucking take it, already.”

“You’re…” Yifan begins, raising a hand but stopping mid-air. “You’re giving me your knife?”

“ _No,_ ” Zitao gasps in feigned shock. “I’m handing it over for you to stare at it! What, you gonna carve wood with just those meaty paws of yours?”

Yifan pouts and takes the knife from Zitao’s hand, and brings it down to his lap as he repositions the strand of wood across his thighs. “Keep your thumb just below the handle on top of the blade,” Zitao tells him. “Not the sharp side, obviously. You’ll have more control that way.”

With this guidance in mind, Yifan carefully begins to carve small strips away from the plank, the wood malleable and falling in sodden pieces like soft clay. Zitao’s knife is slightly rusted at the edge of the blade as if the kid’s had it a very long time, and Yifan remembers what Zitao had told him just a few days ago. 

“Hey, Tao?” He asks when his head is hung and he’s focused on a side of the rod, trying to thin it out as instructed. “Didn’t you say I wasn’t allowed to touch your knives because you don’t trust me with sharp things?”

Zitao falters, at that, eyebrows raising slightly and eyes becoming just a little bit wider and more alert, and he gives him a neutral little shrug. “I guess, but you’re not using it as a weapon right now, are you?”

No, Yifan thinks, he’s _not_ using the knife for misintention. That makes sense, then, because the only danger there is from using Zitao’s knife in this manner is the threat of nicking the plump skin of his thumb tips. 

Yifan lets out a little laugh, then, just a small exhale that he could disguise as a chuckle, and says, “This seems a lot like we’re back in the stone ages, doesn’t it?”

Zitao, ever the little pill, rolls his eyes, “Yeah, well, that’s what happens when humanity runs itself right into the ground.”

“How do you know how to do all this, by the way?” Yifan asks out of curiosity. “Like, how do you know which wood to use, and how to make arrowheads, and how vine works for tying?”

“Are you dumb?” Zitao deadpans. “I had to keep myself alive _somehow_. I’m a hunter, Yifan, can’t you see?”

Yifan blinks, a little bit flustered by that statement. Is Zitao really a hunter? Yifan always thought hunters just kill everything that moves and rob it blind and leave it for dead, but Zitao didn’t do any of those things. Sure, he _almost_ did, but he didn’t, and Yifan simply thought it was because of Zitao’s relentless attitude and abrasive personality.

“I learned the ins and outs of hunter minds,” Zitao continues monotonously. “I learned how they hunt, how they hide, and how they die. I killed all of the ones that crossed me and several times had them rob me, but that’s _my_ fucking backpack and that’s _my_ fucking gun and nobody can have them. Not even you, Bighead.” 

They fall into a somewhat-comfortable silence after that, for Yifan simply keeps quiet to avoid pissing Zitao off as the boy repeatedly chips at a rock he’s got pinned to the floor with the butt of his knife. 

When he’s finished carving at the rod, he holds it up to the light for Zitao to see, and the boy raises an eyebrow. “Impressive,” he says with a stretch. “You even trimmed the edges. You really are an Einstein, Yifan.”

Yifan smiles, bashful, as Zitao takes the rod from him and places it in a pile which - when had that gotten there? Yifan hadn’t even been paying attention to realize that Zitao had actually been helping him the whole time, carving his own strands of wood at a much faster and more experienced rate than Yifan himself held, and for some reason, the notion makes the inside of Yifan’s chest warm.

“After that comes the arrowheads,” Zitao lifts one to show him, a chipped-at stone with peppering all along its grayed surface. “They’re a lot harder to make but you can actually reuse them if you pull them out of the infected or if you miss a shot and the rod breaks. Again, always disinfect them if you’re reusing them, but I made this one for you earlier.”

Earlier… does he mean when Yifan had been out gathering the weeds and vines off of house siding for these arrows? Zitao… had really thought of him while he was gone?

“So you line them up with the top of the rod, like this,” Zitao shows him as he lays the pieces out on the ground. “Then you take some vine - or if I had it, some twine or even some flexible wicker - and you start at the upper part of the arrowhead near the tip, and you begin to wrap it downwards around the rod and back up again, and you continue doing this until it’s nice and secure, and then you knot it off just like you would a thread.”

Yifan is in awe as Zitao then begins to tie some of the leaves to the tail end of the rod, and when he finally hands the arrow to him for him to hold and analyze and appreciate, Yifan’s heart is swollen. Zitao has really been so kind with him today, thinking of him and making parts for his arrows because Yifan has never done this before and probably - no, _without a doubt_ \- would have made them incorrectly. Yifan wonders if this is how Zitao shows affection, maybe by lending a helping hand or being a little less angry. Does this mean he’s progressed in their relationship at all - even if by a little bit? 

“Don’t fuckin’ break it,” Zitao snaps at him as he stands up, leaving Yifan sat on the floor, “I’ll keep the rocks and vines so you can make some more but I’m not a factory. I only have two hands which means I can only do so much, and one of them is already keeping my ass alive and keeping you three feet away from me at all fuckin’ times. Capiche?”

Yifan nods in agreement and repeats the confirmation, as he lets Zitao slide the two arrows he already owns into the loop beside his bow and Yifan can’t help but feel special and can’t help but feel appreciated as Zitao once again steps foot into his chance to kill Yifan with his bare hands, yet he spares him under the simple excuse that Yifan is useful. Useful for what? Yifan knows it can’t be much, but with how lenient Zitao is being, he really couldn’t care less. 

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“Just so we’re clear,” Zitao tells him when they’ve left the garage and headed down the barren street, dead leaves crunching beneath their boots and twigs snapping with each step. “If you’re staying, we need to set some ground rules because you’re one hell of a button-pusher, you are.”

“I try not to be,” Yifan confesses with a deep little chuckle. “Sorry.”

“Somehow, I don’t even expect you to follow them, but when you’re addressing me, you will give me basic respect. Understand?”

Yifan nods and says, “Does that mean I can be your _basically-respectful_ friend?”

“Why you little - ” Zitao rolls his eyes and turns on his heel to face the guy, and Yifan stops walking as Zitao blocks his way. “Alright, wise-ass. You want to be a pain in the ass, I can be a pain in the ass right back. Rule number one, no touching me. Understand? No poking me, no stroking me, no hugging me. You touch me and I slice your finger down to the bone.”

Yifan cringes at the mental imagery of the spike of wet pain as his finger would bleed out and the air would turn sharp on his bloodied, exposed muscle. “Understood.”

“Rule number two,” Zitao starts and crosses his arms over his chest. “No freebies. If I give you something or do something for you, you’re giving it in return. Meaning, how I helped you make your stupid arrows? You’re going to repay me.”

Yifan frowns and says, “How?”

“Somehow,” Zitao shrugs and hooks his fingers in his belt loops, “Trust me, I’ll think of something, don’t doubt that.”

“Can it involve me not getting hurt, please?”

Zitao’s eyes meet his as he’s analyzing his fingers, looking at the dirt underneath his nails and the minuscule scratches along his knuckles. “Sorry, I don’t make promises.”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a small river nearby and Zitao insists they stop at it to gather water, and Yifan realizes that he _is_ quite thirsty and it’s been a couple of days since he’s had an actual drink, so maybe stopping at the river won’t be a bad idea. 

“It’s beautiful,” Yifan comments, ebullient as he rushes to the edge of the water and scans the horizon hedonistically, awe painted across his face. “So pretty.”

“It’s just water,” Zitao comments dryly before setting his bag down and taking out leather gloves and canteens. “Don’t get too excited.” Yifan watches as Zitao unpacks all kinds of things for their water collecting, and he wonders - do they really need _all_ of that to collect some water? 

Curious, Yifan kneels by the water’s edge and watches, hypnotized, as the sunshine ripples along the surface and burns bright white from the rays of the sun. It’s been such a long time since Yifan’s lived his life on the shore, had the vast, beautifully cerulean ocean just beyond his backyard. It was his favorite place to be in the sweltering warmth of the summer - neck-deep in the sea tides and chilled thoroughly to the bone by the time he got out, it was Yifan’s very favorite pastime when he didn’t have to worry about being out alone and unprotected. 

He reaches out curiously in hopes of trailing the pads of his fingers along the wet, smooth surface just one time - when a hand smacks his away and Yifan looks up with wide eyes, and Zitao is giving him an unimpressed, irritated look. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Yifan blinks and glances back at the water beneath his knees. “I wanted a drink.”

“Uh,” Zitao scoffs, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

The man frowns and asks, “Why not?” and running thin on patience, Zitao rolls his eyes and hands Yifan a pair of leather gloves and a canteen.

“Because the virus is in the water, too, genius.”

Yifan’s eyes widen as he glances up at the river, purring softly as the water treacles in the breeze. Can't he go in the water ever again? “Even in the sea?” He asks, genuinely curious, but Zitao shakes his head.

“No, the oceans are fine. They’re too cold for the virus to thrive. Places like rivers, creeks, lakes, ponds. Places that are warm where bacteria can fester. So, a piece of useful advice - never touch warm, idle water with anything that can get it on your skin. Always use a coated glove, like these.”

Yifan tugs the gloves onto his hands and notices they’ve got ties just above the wrist and go to nearly mid-forearm, and he wonders just where in the world Zitao would have gotten these because, in all honesty, Yifan didn’t even know they _made_ these. He gathers the water under Zitao’s supervision, dipping the canteen into the river and letting it bubble until it stops. “How do you use it then if it’s infected?”

“You boil it,” Zitao tells him simply. “Thought that would have been kind of obvious.”

“Oh.”

“And then you disinfect the gloves and the rest of your skin that could have been exposed. Simple.”

“I didn’t even know that,” Yifan confesses, capping the top of his canteen and handing it to Zitao as he’s given a fresh, empty one. Zitao scoffs at his response and wipes off the canteen with a hand towel.

“Now do you see why I’m the smarter one? You’d die without me.”

When they finish collecting, Yifan has become peckish and suggests they keep moving to find something to snack on, so Zitao unfolds the map and begins to read it. It’s hard to tell, exactly, but they’re about fifty miles west of Winnipeg and are just crossing the river to the north. A sharp eastern turn should get them where they’re going in no time. “Alright,” Zitao begins as he scans a finger over the dirtied paper, “so we should cross right here and then go immediately right to continue east along the river until we make it to the next town which should put us on a straight-east path into Winnipeg.”

Yifan glances at the map as he kneels down, and his face crumples up in confusion, “But if we’re going north and then immediately east, then what’s the point of even crossing the river? We could just follow the river east and then find where the river ends and curve up into the city.”

“That’s not how this goes, dickhead,” Zitao rolls his eyes and folds the map back up, placing it back into his backpack before zipping it. "The river is nearly a mile long so we have to cross in order to be a mile north.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Yifan offers as he stands up, as well, “but if we’re just going to be following the river until it ends, then what’s the point of fussing to cross infected water when we can just walk to the end of the river and then walk north?”

Aggravated, Zitao inhales lengthily through his nose and crosses his arms as they make eye contact, and Yifan’s blood runs cold at the look in the boy’s eyes. “Yifan, who gave you permission to butt in with your opinion? I _do_ know where we’re going, and I _do_ know how to get there, thank you very much, sir. I don’t need your nonsense about stupid river endings. How do we know the river even ends and doesn’t treacle into Narnia?”

The man blinks and points vaguely to where Zitao put the map and says, “Well, it’s always on the map. Rivers don’t just go on forever, every river has an endpoint.”

“ _Fine_ ,” Zitao spits, and tightens his backpack straps and hands Yifan the map, shoving it into the guy’s chest and watching him grapple to keep a hold on it. “If you know so much, then _you_ get us there.”

While taking orders from Zitao may be something Yifan doesn’t particularly enjoy, getting to be smug and shifty while he does certainly is. When Zitao told him to lead the way, he should have expected Yifan to do it _gladly_ with a smile on his face and gait in his walk, and if Zitao was supposed to expect him to whine and reject the offer, then he clearly doesn’t know Yifan at all.

Yifan takes the lead as he walks them down the wind of the river, following the map to the east and _jeez_ , a compass would be really handy right now.

Another thing that Yifan discovers on their journey with a quick glance back is that Zitao secretly enjoys foreign scenery. Several times has he glanced back and seen Zitao rip his eyes from where he’d been staring at the gleaming surface of the water, akin to the way Yifan had just before, and Zitao has given him an angry stare each time as if Yifan was witnessing something he shouldn’t have seen. It makes him smile because Zitao is so easy to read when he’s not expecting to be read. 

“Can you stop fucking doing that?”

Yifan looks back behind himself and decides to turn on his heels and begin to walk backward so he can be face-to-face with Zitao, and he smiles, “Doing what?”

“You _know_ what,” Zitao snaps at him matter-of-factly. “Quit that creepy staring you’re doing. It’s giving me indigestion.”

With a careless shrug and palms raised in innocence, he says, “I’m just making sure nobody snuck up on you back there. Wouldn’t want a massacre beside the river, now would we? That’d be a terrible place to wind up dead because they could throw your body in the river and we’d never see Tao again.”

“ _Please_ ,” the kid rolls his eyes and crosses his arms, “I guarantee I have better hearing than you do. If anyone’s getting murdered riverside, it’s going to be you. Speaking of which, I’d turn around if I were you.”

Confused, Yifan begins to turn and teeters as he realized he nearly fell off the edge and into the water, and Zitao practically _cackles_ at his misfortune. Right, you’re supposed to watch where you’re walking. Right. “Alright, alright, you got me.”

“Now do you see why I have better senses than you do?”

Yifan brushes himself off and begins walking again, this time facing forward as Zitao’s question collects dust behind his back before he decides to respond, “That still doesn’t explain how you never woke up with your _amazing hearing_ when I was tucking you in like a baby on our first night together.”

Zitao doesn’t respond, and Yifan begins to think he’s won the battle, he’s outwitted the wittiest, he’s finally had the last laugh - when the flat of Zitao’s boot collides with the back of his left knee and he collapses like a house of cards onto the wet grass below him. Zitao, egoistic and shameless, comes into Yifan’s view as the man lays on his side with his knee pressed to his chest, and the boy stands over him with a smirk gracing his lips and his arms crossed over his chest. “Who’s the baby now, dickhead?”

Yifan seethes and presses his fingers into the bruise that’s going to bloom later on, and winces as dull pain shoots down his calf. 

Then his heart skips when he notices Zitao picking Yifan’s backpack up and throwing it over his shoulder, overtop his own bag, and walking away, and Yifan yells out, “ _Wait_! Aren’t you gonna help me up?”

Yet ever so cocky, Zitao turns to him and says, “How? Babies can’t lift.”

Yifan sighs where he curls into himself, realizing this is his punishment for insulting Zitao like that. By the time he stands, Zitao is a good couple hundred feet ahead of him and wow, he was really planning on leaving Yifan for dead with all of Yifan’s belongings like that.

“But my leg hurts!”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

   
  


“Up here.”

While Yifan admires Zitao’s ability to spot places for them to explore and find supplies, he’s avidly jealous of his ability to slink so weightlessly in such emaciated buildings, while Yifan finds himself on the brink of death each and every time he enters a home made of unpolished stone or aged brick. Paved flooring crumbles underneath him, wood creaks and sometimes even splinters or snaps, and every time Zitao takes him into one of these deathtraps, it always results in Zitao having to reach out a hand and yank him to safety. 

Which - in turn - makes a _shit ton_ of noise, and makes Zitao hiss whispered hushes at him to shut the fuck up, and Yifan can’t fucking _help it_. It’s not _his_ fault he’s taller and broader than a skinny teenager, and it’s not _his_ fault they’re in broken-down houses in the first place.

“I know you don’t care about me,” Yifan huffs as he latches onto a stable chunk of the floor and struggles to pull himself up. So much for that impressive upper-arm strength he once had when he was young, “but you can’t really expect me to be as nimble and quiet as you. I mean, I’m taller than you _and_ probably twice your weight.”

The boy’s jaw drops and his eyebrows furrow at this, and he angrily slides his knife into his belt, “I’m not ninety pounds, Yifan! You’re not over two-hundred, don’t be daft. Get your big ass up here.”

“How do you know how much I weigh?” 

“Because I’ve met people over two-hundred, and I know for a fact you’re not over two-hundred. Try again.”

This time, Yifan manages to find a ledge beneath his right foot and manages to hoist himself just a bit, just enough to bring one knee up and over the jagged edge of the fallen-through floor. There’s a moment where his heart plummets when he teeters and feels as though he’s falling, but he gives one last _shove_ and spills gracelessly onto the marble. “Yeah? How would a scrawny little thing like _you_ know?”

“Excuse me?” Zitao asks incredulously, hands balling into fists. “Who the fuck are you calling _scrawny_? I’ll have you know, beneath this vest, I’ve got a six-pack that says I can kick your ugly _ass_ , shitbrain!”

“Oh yeah?” Yifan laughs, playful. Zitao is like a walking little bomb, so easy to ignite. “Says who? I bet you won’t hit me even if you had the opportunity.”

“Hoh, so that’s the game we’re playing now, is it, Yifan?” Zitao strides over and watches as Yifan cowers onto his bum from where he had knelt. “What makes you think I won’t beat your ass into a bloody pulp? I’ve done it to hunters, I can _certainly_ do it to you.”

Yifan makes a move to stand, but Zitao gives him no preamble as he takes another step closer and continues to shout at him, “What is it, Yifan? Cat got your fucking tongue? For _once_? Have you forgotten that I’ve had to sew you up twice already because you think you’re a bigshot? Huh? Have you forgotten that I kill because people push my buttons, too? Have you forgotten that not only do I not want you here, but I didn’t even want to keep you alive? _No_! I bet you _didn’t_! So what _**is** it_ , Yifan?! What’s your fucking **_problem_**?!”

Zitao lashes out in a swift kick to Yifan’s gut which causes him to groan loudly and hunch over himself, grabbing at his abdomen. _Shit_ , are Zitao’s boots _metal-toed_?

Curling into a fetal position, Yifan lifts himself weakly on his arms so he’s propped up sideways and spits, relieved to see that no blood came out although he wouldn’t be surprised, and looks up at him with glossy eyes. “Punch me in the face, then.”

The boy’s eyebrow raises at that, and he takes a half-step backward. “What? Why? Don’t tell me you actually _like_ pain.”

“I don’t,” Yifan coughs briskly, face contorting in pain as he lays his free hand across his stomach, “but for some reason, you won’t cause any damage to my face, and I’m curious why. You keep telling me how I ugly I am and yet it’s like you’re afraid of damaging my face. If you really find me attractive, Tao, just say it.”

“Are you - ” Zitao stammers as his jaw drops. “I’m a _minor_ , you dirty fucking weirdo!”

“Then hit me,” Yifan repeats humorously, the corners of his lips curving up. “Punch me. Cut me. Anything, as long as it’s on my face. Go on, do it. I’m ugly, right? Isn’t that what you said? Yet you always seem to shy your eyes away whenever I smile - am I just so ugly that it hurts to even look at me?”

“What exactly are you getting at here?” The boy asks with anger in his voice. “Are you testing me?”

“I’m not testing anybody,” Yifan responds, and this time, he stands up fully and Zitao backs up another few inches, countenance suddenly wavering. “I just wanna know what you’re hiding from me. Could it be that you find me charming, actually?”

“It’s none of your fucking business what secrets I keep from you, stop trying to look into me!”

“So if it’s not a secret, then why can’t I know?” Yifan pressures him with the grace of a smirk on his plump lips and Zitao’s expression completely cracks, falling backward another step. “What am I to you, Tao?”

The boy doesn’t say anything for a while, just simply staring at him in what appears to be shock, maybe a little bit of disgust or even fear - which Yifan _highly_ doubts it is - before Zitao’s expression hardens and he reaches out and shoves Yifan with both hands on his shoulders, which sends the man careening backward into a wooden table. “ _You’re **annoying**_!!”

Yifan hisses in pain when his back slams against the wood and tension shoots down his lower lumbar. Even though Zitao is shorter than him and thinner than him, the kid’s strength sure packs a punch and Yifan doesn’t think his tailbone will be forgetting it anytime soon.

“Get fucking lost,” Zitao spits at him and snatches his backpack off of the floor. “I want to be alone.”

This time, Yifan listens to him and trails behind him by ten Mississippi’s, so by the time they cross over to the next block of apartments and Zitao hops onto a dumpster from the second-story window, Yifan takes his time in the fire-exit stairs before following him across town.

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

   
 

Zitao has been thinking.

How can he get Yifan off his back permanently without having to kill him? That is the question.

It’s not that he doesn’t _have_ emotions, but it’s been far too long of a time since he’s felt joy, or happiness, or even comfort around someone. It’s been too long since he’s even genuinely _smiled_ , and the thought that he’s lost himself makes tears stream down his cheeks. He sniffles and turns his face to the sky, wiping them away with the back of his hand. He won’t cry, he can’t cry. Big boys don’t cry.

Why is he so sensitive? Why is it after even the slightest insult to his own character, he finds himself breaking out in tears? And why is it _Yifan_ of all people on the planet, decided that he had to be the one to get underneath Zitao’s skin and make him feel like less of a man? He’s tough and strong, dammit, he’s a killing machine. That’s what Evelyn would have wanted. That’s… what his mother would have wanted.

No, it’s not.

He hugs himself gently in the fall chill as he continues down the road, stepping over cracks and lumps of moss. His mother wouldn’t have wanted him to be so cruel to people, so why is he? Why does he get such an urge to inflict pain on people? His mother raised him to be just like Yifan, and the second Yifan told him about being a pacifist, Zitao felt a chord in his heart being tugged. His mother wanted him to be _just_ like Yifan because he’s a hungry and she knew all Zitao would ever do in order to stay alive was inflict pain. It was what he had to do, but she wanted to make sure he didn’t get carried away with it - so why has he let himself get carried away? Why has he done this to himself?

Truthfully, he couldn’t care less if Yifan cared about him or not because Zitao doesn’t care about anybody or anything, and in retrospect, that thought actually terrifies him. What happened to the friendly eight-year-old that always hung out with Sehun and Yixing and always cuddled with his mother when his parents had been fighting and she had a hard time falling asleep? What happened to the little boy that would do anything for his mother in order to keep her safe? 

He clears his throat and pushes his thoughts away, wiping his under-eyes a few more times and deciding he’s had enough crying. All crying does is make you tired and weak, there’s no point. He’s strong now, stronger than he’s ever been, and he’s going to make it to Iqaluit to see his mother. He’s going to find her, he _will_ , and he’s going to patent a vaccine. Even if it means giving himself up and having to put her through the torture of losing her son _again_ , Zitao would give his life to save hers in a heartbeat.

Slightly distracted, Zitao wanders up the steps of a small townhouse and pushes open the door very gently as to not make a sound, and when he finds the coast clear, he seats himself down on the living room sofa, and sighs. 

Why is he always so unhappy? Why can’t he just be _happy_? He’s not necessarily sad, not all the way angry, and not fully anxious, either. He feels… unfulfilled. 

Why can’t he just be like every other hungry on the planet and join a clan? That way, at least he’d be a lot less lonely and he wouldn’t have to deal with pesky humans. That way, at least he’d be with his own kind. He’d be with the animals… just like him.

His eyes flutter shut as his energy slowly drains from his body, and a tear rolls down his cheek.

_Why can’t I hug mother again?_

_Why did she leave me all alone and not even say goodbye?_

_Why?_

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

_Silly boy_ , he thinks to himself as he lights a fire in the house’s wood-burning fireplace, taking some of the leftover balsa and setting it in the pit before taking out his box of matches and lighting it. _Always falling asleep in the coldest of places without even taking your blanket out. You’ll get sick._

He ransacks the kitchen ever so quietly and finds just what he’s looking for - a cast pot - and takes it over to the fireplace. He silently slides a canteen from his bag and empties it into the pot, and moves the pot to the fire-top grate for it to boil. 

While the water heats, he glances over and can’t help but smile. 

_Silly boy._

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

When Zitao stirs, the air is calm and silent and yet permeated by a repetitive scraping sound, as if someone is gently raking their nails across something and it’s quite soothing, actually, but Zitao had fallen asleep alone. Which means if he had been alone - then what was making that sound?

He lifts his head from where it had been arched over the curve of the sofa and sharp pain and blurred tension shoot down his neck. _Good going, Zitao, sleeping like a fucking animal._ He massages the ache with his fingers and hisses at the feeling of his knotted muscles, praying like hell that it will go away before the next sunrise. 

When he opens his eyes, however, he’s really only half-surprised to see Yifan sitting several feet away beside the fireplace with a strand of wood in his hand and a knife beneath the stress of his right thumb as he chips away at it. The guy still looks exactly the same, the same bluewash denim shirt and the same dark hair tied off just above his collar, the same Yifan, and Zitao rolls his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” He asks softly, and Yifan’s head perks up from his wood carving. There’s brightness in those eyes and to be honest, it’s a little bit creepy. 

“Well _good morning_ ,” Yifan singsongs, a crooked smile spreading across his lips. “I thought you might like some company since you keep just falling asleep anywhere and keep nearly freezing to death.”

Zitao pouts and says, “I wouldn’t have frozen to death, shut up.” Why does Yifan have to follow him everywhere he goes? Even in his sleep, Zitao can’t get a single moment of peace and quiet and aloneness. Every time he opens his eyes, Yifan is there with his stupid smile and his stupid bow and his _stupid_ self. 

Yifan gives a little bit of a laugh and shakes his head as though in disbelief and says, “Once the temperatures drop, you will. You have to remember to take your blanket out, silly.”

The boy remains quiet but there is movement in his peripherals, and when he glances up, Yifan has stood and is walking over to the fireplace with soft steps, and he watches as the man reaches into the darkened fireplace with what looks like a drinking glass and dips it into _something_ , for when it comes back out into Zitao’s line of sight, it’s filled with clean drinking water. Yifan wipes it off briefly before slowly stepping over and reaching it out for him to take, but Zitao just stares at the glass before raising an eyebrow up at the man.

“It was boiled,” Yifan tells him. “I’m not trying to kill you, don’t worry. I just wanted to apologize for how I acted earlier.”

Ah, so that’s why Yifan is pampering him. He should have known by now that any time Yifan takes extra care of him is when he is remorseful and feels he needs to atone for his sins. “And if I don’t want to accept your apology?”

Yifan falters, clearly not expecting that kind of a reaction, before a nervous grin splays along his lips, “Please?”

Grumpy and not in the mood for pampering, Zitao decides to take the water and it makes Yifan smile, grossly bright in the darkness.

They drift into an awkward silence as Zitao sips on his water, cool to the touch and silky as it goes down his throat, and most certainly _clean_ , as Yifan returns to his arrow work and Zitao watches, impressed, as Yifan unzips a small musette and takes out several sharpened arrowheads to tie to the balsa rods. Had he made those while Zitao had been asleep? And to make several in that short amount of time? Jesus, that’s dedication if Zitao has ever seen it. Yet it’s when Yifan has begun tying one of the heads to a plain arrow with a slightly-dried vine when he says, “How come you always keep that necklace beneath your shirt?”

Zitao’s heart plummets as he remembers that he’s wearing the pendant, that the resin flower still lays just over his undershirt in the middle of his breastplate, and nausea slowly creeps up into his gut and overtakes him. He doesn’t want to think about that, doesn’t want to think about how he got it or how he lost the person that gave it to him. Why would Yifan even bring that up? 

“None of your business,” Zitao says flatly, and Yifan really isn’t shocked in the least. 

“But can’t you tell me?” He asks playfully. “I just want to know because it seems so uncomfortable to sleep with it underneath your clothes like that.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Zitao opts for, averting his eyes to his lap as he brings the cup back to his lips, very much akin to a baby drinking their milk. 

This time, Yifan gets the aching feeling that he’s tugged on a heartstring that he wasn’t supposed to know about, and his attention on the arrows falters as he looks up at the boy. It’s quite scary to see someone like Zitao look so melancholy, someone who is always on the very top of their game and could outscream you any day of the week, and guilt floods his insides. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I didn’t know it was personal.”

“Why don’t you just shut up?” Zitao snaps with his eyes on the man. “Just stop talking, Yifan. Just stop.”

Yifan does as he’s told, dropping the subject and looking back down at the arrow in his lap, but his desire to craft has completely dissipated as all he can think about is Zitao’s grief. Something very bad must have happened regarding that necklace if Zitao won’t even tell him where it came from or why he wears it covered up. All Yifan wanted to know was why he didn’t wear it outside his clothing like a normal pendant or a locket. He wonders if maybe Zitao’s mother had got it for him, and it’s the only thing Zitao has of her to remember her by. He wonders if maybe that’s why Zitao is so hellbent on the idea that his mother is still alive. 

Zitao, being as surreptitious and sneaky as he is, is incredibly hard for Yifan to read. He tries to imagine the kid skateboarding with other teenagers his age, tries to imagine him at home playing video games and eating sugary snacks and doing homework, maybe even texting and phone-calling with girls from school. He tries to imagine Zitao in a classroom, doing his trigonometry assignment and studying for his midterm exams, but every time he tries to connect this Zitao with the gun in his belt and blades right underneath his fingertips to the Zitao in his mind, simple and innocent and gentle, it doesn’t feel right and his stomach curdles a little bit. 

Does Zitao ever wish that he could be a normal teenager? He wonders what Zitao would wish for if he could wish for _anything_. His mother would be right at the top of that list, but then, what after that? Would he wish for friends, a girlfriend… a family? Would he wish the virus away? Would he wish for his life to return to normal the way it was before the rebellion happened? He wonders what goes on inside that kid’s mind sometimes, and what Zitao truly desires. 

“Can I ask you a question?” Yifan asks quietly, voice soft and careful, and he looks up to see that Zitao has set his cup on the sofa-side table and is now sprawled across it with his blanket draped over him as he stares up at the ceiling with his hands beneath his head, as if he’s debating getting some more sleep. When Yifan glances at the windows, it is already plenty dark outside and he suspects that it may be in the middle of the night. 

Zitao, however, is less than amused when he turns his head to the man and gives him a blank stare, “Didn’t I just tell you to shut up?”

“We made an agreement,” Yifan tells him lightly, “that I would be allowed to stay with you if I learned to protect myself, which means you’re stuck with me _and_ my questions.”

“Dumbass,” Zitao whispers with a roll of his eyes, and Yifan ought to tell him if he continues rolling them so much, they’re going to roll right out of their sockets. “An agreement can be broken at any time, and frankly, you’re lucky you’re still in it.”

“Then kick me out of it,” Yifan says cheekily, leaning back on his hands with his legs outstretched in front of him. “Do it, show me that you don’t pity me.”

The boy remains silent and instead balls his fists in his blanket and brings it up to cover his mouth and flutters his eyes closed, and Yifan smiles, clearly amused. _That’s what I thought._

“See?” Yifan laughs. “I told you, you need me.”

“I don’t need anybody,” Zitao responds quickly, slightly muffled underneath the blanket. “Now can you just leave me the fuck alone? I’m tired and you’re giving me a headache.”

Of course, Yifan respects his wishes, but he also feels as though their relationship isn’t going to progress whatsoever if Zitao is constantly telling him to be quiet, so as per usual, Yifan does not listen. “Why do you hate people so much?”

“Thanks for listening,” Zitao says flatly, sarcastically. “I already told you I don’t want to talk about it.”

“No,” Yifan corrects politely, “you told me you didn’t want to talk about the necklace. This is talking about people, so can you answer my question, please?”

“Who says I have to? It’s a stupid question, anyway.”

It may be a stupid question, but Yifan can’t help but be curious. “I just want to know what it is about me that you hate so much. Are you afraid of me, are you intimidated by me, are you disgusted by me?”

“People lie, and people steal,” Zitao responds emotionlessly. “People are ruthless, they take whatever they want and give no care to how other people around them might feel. I hate you because you’re a stupid idiot who can’t keep his hands to himself, and can’t keep himself out of trouble. That a good enough answer for you?”

The statement makes sense, Yifan realizes, but he being not as intelligent as Zitao and not being as swift-footed as Zitao isn’t necessarily his fault, that’s just how he was born. “Is that why I can’t even pat you on the back?”

“Yifan, I just met you a fucking week ago, what makes you think any stranger has permission to touch me anywhere? I didn’t give consent for your gross hands to be on my body. Jesus Christ, it’s like you’ve never heard of personal space.”

The arrow falls slack in his hands at the boy’s words and his heart clenches. Is that really how Zitao feels? Yifan never meant to disrespect him or freak him out by touching him but he isn’t even allowed to shake hands with the kid or flick a briar off of his pants for him - has it been all his fault this whole time? Why is Zitao so closed-off? “It was two weeks ago.”

The boy doesn’t answer him, and Yifan assumes that he’s either fallen asleep or simply doesn’t want to answer him, and his gut feeling tells him it’s the latter, so he sets the finished arrow aside and looks over at the forgotten water pot seated inside the fireplace. Zitao hadn’t even been grateful for giving him clean water.

He pouts but shoves the disappointment aside because it’s Zitao, after all, and Zitao is naturally like this. Rude, loud, violent, they’re all aspects of Zitao’s personality that Yifan is just going to have to accept sooner or later. So he ties a few more of the stone heads onto his balsa rods and glances up every now and then to make sure that Zitao is truly asleep, and when he hears a gentle hushed snore, he smiles brightly to the point where his cheeks kind of hurt. _So cute._

When he hits the hay, it’s in a recliner chair beside the fireplace, and Yifan - who has begun to feel the nighttime chill again now that the fire has died down - takes his dried balsa scraps and tosses them by the handful into the pit. He’s got six arrows now, and he can always find more wood out by the river, so with that in mind, he takes the big pile of reeds Zitao had gathered for him, and lays them in the pit, as well. Now that the fire is lit and the room is no longer eerily dark with only the bright icy moonlight pouring in, bathed in a homey yellow-orange, Yifan can sleep.

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

There are a lot of ways Zitao enjoys being woken up. A gentle nudge, a kiss on the forehead, a hand in his hair. The ear-piercing, pained squawking of infected? Not exactly a favorite.

He shoots up from the sofa faster than he thinks he’s ever roused himself, ears perked at the ready, and he notices Yifan scrambling from the lounger as infected pour into the front door of the house, scratching against the wood and shrieking in their gurgled, shredded voices. “Oh my God, you’ve gotta be fuckin’ _joking_!” 

His gun is in his hands and out of his belt before he can even think about it and he’s let off four shots by the time one of them leaps onto Yifan’s body and tackles him to the ground, and Yifan shouts in alarm, “ _Get off_! **_Tao_**!!” and Zitao drops the gun in a flurry of panic and reaches for his knife. Yifan’s got the body propped up with his hands on its shoulders, keeping it airborne with all of his might as the infected snaps its jaw and drips gooey, mucilaginous saliva onto the man’s neck, and with several grandiose strides, Zitao sinks the knife into the sickly-soft flesh of the infected’s back, grimacing as Yifan _shrieks_ and when Zitao drags the knife down the length of the infected’s spine, bones grinding and cracking against the blade, he notices blood pouring onto the man’s skin beneath him.

Zitao steps back after shoving the blade upwards into the base of the infected’s skull and gives Yifan room to kick, and the body tumbles off of him as he’s soaked in dark blood. 

“Oh my God,” he mumbles, looking at the crowd of mangled, torn-open bodies leading to the front door of the home, then down at his red-stained skin. “Oh my God, am I gonna die?”

“No,” Zitao tells him quickly, looking down at his own blood-soaked hands and making a run for the pot of water inside the fireplace, dipping his hands in it to wash them off before grabbing his backpack, yanking the zipper down hurriedly, and procuring his bottle of disinfectant. “You’re not gonna die if you do exactly as I say, got it? Get undressed, you can’t wear those clothes anymore.”

Yifan blinks but quickly springs into action, unbuttoning his denim shirt with careful fingers and letting it fall to the ground with a sickeningly wet _slap_ before unzipping his trousers and pulling them down by his ankles. It’s a little surprising how Zitao doesn’t avert his eyes when Yifan strips down to only his underpants, but the boy is moving closer before he can even blink and is already beginning to drip the medicated liquid down Yifan’s chest.

“ _Ah_ \- that’s fucking cold,” Yifan hisses, and Zitao grumbles for him to shut up as he sets the bottle down and rapidly massages the medicine into the man’s skin, trying to stretch it as far as it can go so he doesn’t have to waste more and leave Yifan too sticky. “How does this stuff work again?”

“You leave it on,” Zitao explains quickly, and Yifan notices that the boy’s breath is wavering like he’s… _terrified_. “Then you rinse it off after thirty minutes. Give me your hands.”

Yifan holds his palms out and watches as Zitao tips the bottle until a small drop of the dark green liquid lands on the thick of his hand and Zitao begins to massage it in, and Yifan is beginning to enjoy this. Zitao has these small, soft hands and he’s not being too rough with him at all, and Yifan is pleasantly surprised. When Zitao has finished with his hands, he squats down and rubs a little bit more of the ointment onto the meat of Yifan’s legs and the outside of his boots which are _Yifan-less_ next to his sodden clothes, which Yifan doesn’t quite understand but then again perhaps the blood would seep into the leather.

“Don’t touch anything,” Zitao warns. “Don’t touch your clothes, don’t touch your shoes. I’ll - find you some clothes, or something. Did any of it get on your backpack? Your arrows? Anything?”

Yifan shakes his head, “No, just the clothes. Oh, shit, my harness.”

“Forget it,” Zitao tells him with a quick look at the pile of Yifan’s clothing. “I’ll make you another.”

Finished disinfecting, Zitao heads up the staircase with a nearly-naked Yifan trailing closely behind as he begins rummaging through each bedroom looking for clothing. Unfortunately, both bedrooms he manages to search come up empty, as if either the people who had lived here actually had time to pack before leaving to escape the rebellion, or nobody lived here at all.

It’s not until Zitao dives into the third bedroom - a master bedroom - that he yanks open the closet and nearly cries in relief at the row of clothes hung neatly on hangers, all blacks and dark blues and grays. Carelessly, he yanks handfuls of them down, snapping hangers and sending plastic raining onto the carpeting below, and hands the clothes to Yifan, “Try them on, find something that fits.”

“But what if none of it fits?” Yifan asks, and Zitao gives him an angry stare that chills his blood. He immediately sets the pile down onto the bed and starts picking from it, ending up with a dark navy long-sleeve that’s a little baggy under the armpits and a pair of black jeans that surprisingly fit him well, but Yifan is going to assume it’s because they’re adjustable and have cord-ties on the front rather than the standard zipper-button combo. While he’s busy redressing, Zitao also manages to find a thick, burlap vest in one of the dresser drawers and tosses it to him to put on. Yifan also snags a thick sweatshirt and a blanket from the linen closet as a useful keepsake.

“Alright, we gotta get out of here,” Zitao tells him when they hurry back downstairs and the boy strides over to the sofa for his backpack, his blanket, and his forgotten gun on the ground. “I don’t know where they came from or why they came to us, but they were here for a reason, and chances are, there’s more on the way.”

“You don’t think it was the smoke from the fireplace, do you?” Yifan asks as they abandon the home and trek outside, and Zitao stops right in his tracks as they come in contact with the sight of a _sea_ of them, swarming the streets and rocking idly in place as they twitch and drip saliva onto the pavement, as far as their eyes can see.

“Get down,” Zitao whispers sharply, tapping Yifan’s elbow briskly and diving behind a roadside bench, “ _get down_!”

Yifan tucks and rolls down beside him, which causes the boy to scoot over a few inches and _right_ , personal space.

“This is really bad,” Yifan whispers, heart speeding in his throat, “this is really, _really_ bad - _oh_ , this is so bad.”

“Can you shut the fuck up over there, Einstein?” Zitao hisses with his eyebrows arched and his teeth clenched. “This isn’t normal. Infected don’t just - wander over in fucking _waves_ like this.”

“What do you think it is?” 

The boy breathes quietly for a few moments, Yifan watching as his chest rises and falls as he works to calm himself down by taking slow, deep breaths, before saying, “We’re on the outskirts of Winnipeg. Big cities are like magnets for all these infected, but for them to have swarmed while we were sleeping - it means there are hunters nearby.”

“Oh my God,” Yifan breathes out in self-disappointment. “I kept the fireplace on all night, they could’ve seen the light from it and come in and offed us.”

“Yeah, no fucking _shit_ , genius. Infected aren’t like birds, they don’t migrate south for the fucking winter.” Zitao snaps at him, and Yifan watches as he wipes his finger across his blade and cleans it from earlier, and Yifan’s eyes widen as he watches Zitao simply wipe the darkened blood on his pants. Shouldn’t he disinfect his hands, too?

Instinctually, Yifan reaches behind himself and quietly slides the bow down through the loop on his backpack and brings an arrow along with it, and lines them up behind the bench. He doesn’t know what the kid’s thought process is, but whatever it may be, Yifan has a feeling it’d be better to be safe than sorry. 

“Alright,” Zitao whispers after a moment of wiping the blade of his knife on his denim. “I’m gonna clear us a path, and then I’ll give you a signal to get up and follow me.”

Yifan frowns, then, because what about him? Is Zitao really just gonna leave him here for dead? “What about me?” He asks, watching as the boy’s face contorts in angry confusion. “Isn’t the whole reason I’m here to be helping you?”

“Uh,” Zitao raises an eyebrow and gives him a sour little smirk, “not when you’ve had barely any practice with that fuckin’ thing. Have you seen how many there are? What are six arrows gonna do?”

The man pouts and looks down at the arrow lined up along the unstressed bow, “I could still try.”

“Yifan, can’t you just fucking listen to me for once?” Zitao stresses quietly, voice worn like he’s growing upset. “If I tell you to stay here and wait, you _stay here_ and _wait_.”

Doing as he’s told, Yifan watches as Zitao slinks past the bench to the apartment to the right of them, barely a hair’s breadth from making physical contact with some of the infected, and Yifan’s jaw drops as he realizes _they can’t smell him._

He doesn’t get much time to think about what that statement might actually mean when he watches Zitao dive into the crowd of them, right into the middle of the mass and hears them squawk and shriek, and watches as Zitao emerges and sticks himself to a house across the street as the infected swarm toward where the boy had been just seconds prior. Had he stabbed one of them?

Even though Zitao knows what he’s doing, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything and Yifan knows that firsthand, so Zitao can tell him not to help all he wants but all it takes is one wrong step and Zitao is toast, and if Yifan listens to him enough to let that happen, he’ll never forgive himself for being at fault. So, he sucks in a deep breath and slides the arrow along the hitch, hoists the bow up over top of the bench, and pulls back. The first arrow gets lost somewhere in the crowd and when none of the infected make any shrieks of pain, he realizes he didn’t actually strike any of them. 

Zitao thrusts himself back into the middle and when he re-emerges, this time, he’s got blood trailing down his shirt and he has to sprint and dive into an alleyway in Yifan’s line of sight and hoist himself onto a dumpster, and Yifan wonders just how the _fuck_ he even manages that. When he lets the second arrow go, Zitao is crouched predatorily on the metal with infected scrabbling to reach him, hands swatting out and mandibles smacking, and even from afar Yifan can see a glint of fear in the boy’s eyes which makes his stomach turn sour. Then - one of the hands wraps around Zitao’s foot and begins to pull.

“No - get _off_!” The boy yells and reaches for his knife to slice the limb down through the ligaments. When the tip of Yifan’s arrow suddenly pierces through the back of the infected’s head and causes it to gurgle and slump, Zitao’s head snaps to look at him and Yifan can see all of the shock floating around in those eyes from afar.

Against his better judgment, Zitao ends up having to take out the entire fleet of infected - too many to count, but he could have very easily estimated over a hundred of them - and by the time he’s finished, he’s soaked in infected blood and he’s heaving for air, bent over with his knife having slipped from his fingers and fallen to the ground. 

Yifan tucks his bow in and slides it back into the loop on his bag, as he runs over to the kid and says, “Are you okay?”

Out of breath, Zitao coughs for a few seconds bent over the pavement should he vomit, and Yifan gets the instinctive urge to reach out and rub down the kid’s back to help him expel anything, but that was one of Zitao’s rules that he must respect. No touching. 

“What did you do that you’re covered in them?” Yifan asks again when he doesn’t receive an answer the first time.

Pressing a hand to his chest, the kid rises slowly and Yifan watches as his face slowly regains its color, not even having noticed how _gray_ and translucent the kid had looked - and when Zitao’s face finally regains its warm, golden hue, the kids’ eyes open and his eyebrows furrow as he registers the sight of Yifan in front of him, worried.

“You,” the boy starts, taking a step closer to him, “stupid _idiot_!”

He pushes Yifan backward by the chest, both palms having slapped out and shoved him, and Yifan furrows his eyebrows because why did Zitao hit him? Didn’t he just save his life? “Why am I an idiot? What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t I tell you to stay put and not help me?” Zitao yells at him, practically _into_ him as he gets right in his face and fumes to the point where Yifan can feel the warmth radiating off of him. “You could have **_killed_** me!”

Yifan’s jaw drops as Zitao storms back over to the street to pick up his knife and fold it back into its hold, and he steps over and stops the kid in his tracks, “No, that’s not fair, I _helped_ you.”

“And what if your finger had slipped, Yifan?” The boy shouts at him, eyes dark and skin vibrating in anger. “How many times do I have to tell you I don’t need your help until you know how to shoot the bloody thing? I don’t need my head to come clean off, thank you very much!”

“Zitao, I can’t get better without practice,” Yifan tries to persuade him, pulling his bag straps over his shoulders. “I saved your life, and you know it.”

“ _Do it while I’m not a target_ , goddammit!” The boy screams, voice becoming shrill and eyes beginning to redden and he turns away and walks over to the bench for his own bag. “Fuck this, I don’t need this.”

Yifan, however, hasn’t had enough, as he speed-walks over to the bench and stands in front of Zitao to keep him from walking as he says, “You even called out for help, Tao, you _know_ you did. What would have happened if I didn’t help you?”

“I would have been fine! You saw me slice its hand off my damn ankle!” 

“How do you know they can’t climb up there, Tao?” He asks again, more serious this time, and Zitao has begun to avert his eyes every which way other than at the man in fear of making eye contact. “What would have happened if they jumped up there? The roof was too high from there and there weren’t any open windows, you would’ve been trapped.”

“ _Just shut **up**_!” Zitao shrieks as he slaps his hands over his ears. “Just get _away_ from me!”

The boy storms off, hands balled at his sides, and after how many arguments they’ve gotten into in the past couple days, Yifan has learned it’s better just to keep his mouth shut and let him cool off and just follow him from a slight distance. He’s not sure what hormonal tides teenage boys as young as Zitao go through where it makes them scream at everything and anything, but Yifan feels as though it’s better to let him scream himself into having no voice than to try to get him to calm down.

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

Unsurprisingly, Zitao doesn’t say a word to him for the rest of the day.

Yifan considers themselves lucky for not having run into another swarm like that morning - or early afternoon, he’s not really sure which - but aside from looting through houses and a few pharmaceutical stores, Zitao has been acting like Yifan isn’t even there.

He can’t say he’s necessarily surprised considering how much they’ve been butting heads lately, and yeah, Yifan enjoys antagonizing him as well to get a rise out of him so yeah, he really only adds to the fire and makes it worse, but Zitao has been much more violent with him lately and Yifan feels like something’s off with the kid lately. Maybe something is actually bothering him and it’s constantly eating away at his thoughts? Come to think of it, Zitao has been extra moody ever since Yifan mentioned his necklace last night. Could their tussle earlier have something to do with that necklace? Yifan wonders just what it could be, and why it’s so sacred to the boy. He can’t help but _wonder._

They raided a restaurant’s kitchen earlier - found a lot of canned food and a ton of silverware, which Yifan supposes is something people don’t normally look for - and without speaking, Zitao had merely passed him the items to put in his own bag, and the lack of communication and the thought of being ignored made Yifan feel cold inside.

Which is why when later that evening, when the sky is just melting into a concoction of burnt ochre and a vibrant indigo blue, he’s shocked that when he passes Zitao a can of pasta and a spoon, the boy actually mutters a very soft, “ _Thank you_.”

The voice is so timid, so fragile, and Yifan can’t help but smile as warmth blooms inside of him and he tells him, “You’re welcome.”

Zitao is fragile, deep down, he realizes, human just like him with actual emotions stored deep inside of him. It’s heartwarming to know that Zitao actually feels emotion and isn’t soulless the way he portrays himself to be. 

“Thank you for earlier,” Zitao mumbles to him as he stirs around in his can, soft and almost sleepy, and Yifan wouldn’t be surprised if the kid wore out his throat and his voice with all of that screaming. “For saving me.”

Yifan doesn’t need gratitude and thanks, but it feels nice to be told that he did indeed do a good thing. “You’re welcome,” he tells the boy with a soft smile. “I would’ve done it any day.” He can tell the kid struggles with honesty and moreover struggles with kindness, but this is enough. Just being apologized to is enough. 

Zitao eats his food in peace, his blanket wrapped around his shoulders, Yifan in his stolen sweatshirt with the hood up as the fire glazes warm light onto his facial features, and he tucks a spoonful of his food into his mouth. Chili, he thinks it is, but he’s not exactly sure because the can didn’t have a label and only had an expiry date stamped onto the metal.

The air between them no longer feels awkward, but Yifan still can’t help but feel that there are some unsaid words left between the two of them and that a nice conversation will be the key to clearing that fog. “Hey, Tao?” He asks and watches the boy meet his eye at the mention of his name. “I know you don’t really care, but - I’d like for you to trust me one day. I mean, I don’t know how long it would take, but I want to make it clear to you that I would never hurt you.”

The boy sighs and sets his can down, and wraps his little hands in the lapels of his blanket and says, “I just met you two weeks ago, Yifan. I can’t trust you this quickly.”

“I know that,” Yifan says without missing a beat, “but I don’t need it instantly. I want to prove it to you over time because no matter what happens or what anybody else does, you will always have me as an ally and I will never let anything happen to you.”

Thoughtful, Zitao sticks his tongue in his cheek and gazes down at his socked feet sticking out of the mound of his blanket. “Yifan, you _do_ realize I almost got killed today because of you, right?”

“Hey,” Yifan points out, “we talked about that. It was my job to help you.”

“It was your job for you to follow directions.”

“I can’t follow directions when it puts you in danger, Tao. I’m here to help you, not do whatever you want and let you get killed.”

“I could have very easily handled myself out there!” Zitao whines childishly, and Yifan raises an eyebrow as he smirks a little. “I just shout when I’m angry.”

“I know you do, Tao,” Yifan laughs and takes another spoonful, “but that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

“I don’t need help,” the boy tells him with a pout, and Yifan smiles as Zitao begins eating again.

He’s a sweet kid, Yifan realizes. Underneath that tough exterior and all of those swear words that from whom Yifan wonders where he learned is a boy with a heart, and Yifan loves these little glimpses of that beautiful soul he gets to see when Zitao gets tired and has no energy. They may only last for a few minutes, but Yifan savors them as though they lasted years.

The more he thinks about Zitao, the more he reminds him of someone Yifan would have befriended just years prior, possibly someone he would have appointed as a member of his group fleeing the rebellion before the group broke apart and everyone except Yifan died. Still, to this day, memories of the island and the bridge are still so vivid and still sting as though fresh, and Yifan doesn’t think he will ever learn to not blame himself for what happened on that bridge. 

“You know,” he says as he scrapes the very bottom of his can to get the last bits of meat he can reach, “that’s… a lot like what my partner said to me before they died.”

Somehow, Yifan doesn’t really expect the exasperated sigh and the eye-roll that follows, and Yifan thinks he’s going to have to make good on his lecture about Zitao’s eyes popping out of his head from too much rolling, “Do you ever talk about anything other than your stupid partner? Fuck’s sake.”

When Zitao looks back up at him with another snarky remark on his tongue, it falls flat when he sees the pain in Yifan’s eyes and he suddenly feels like he’s spoken out of line for once. 

Then, Yifan shakes his head and gives him a weak little chuckle, but Zitao gets the feeling that he doesn’t find anything funny. “I used to follow rules, believe it or not. I used to what people actually told me. And yeah, you may beat me around more than others did, but I can’t follow rules anymore, not when the rebellion has no rules.”

Zitao frowns, slightly uncomfortable, and says, “What are you talking about?”

The man takes in a breath through his nose before readjusting his sitting position so he’s propped his elbows up on his knees and wrings his hands together, “Remember when I told you I got my partner killed? Well, it wasn’t supposed to be my fault that they got killed. They actually told me to leave them outside of the island and start anew going north along the river, but I had insisted we go back to the island because we’d be secluded and safer there. So, they died because I actually listened to what they told me to do.”

Ah, so that’s how it is, Zitao thinks to himself. That’s why Yifan is so defiant.

As Zitao processes the thought, he finds himself at a loss for words and doesn’t know how to respond, and certainly has no idea how to give condolences and comfort Yifan, so he stays quiet but stays listening.

“So, yeah,” Yifan says awkwardly, giving him a forced, tight-lipped smile, “that’s why I don’t listen to anything you tell me to do because I won’t let that happen to you.”

“I already told you nothing will happen to me, you creep,” Zitao grumbles, and Yifan gives a half-hearted shrug and a lifeless _there’s always maybe._ “But for a partner, they must’ve been really something since you keep mentioning them.”

Then - from the shadows of Yifan’s face, from the curves of his cheeks and his lips, Zitao notices a shadow of what appears to be a smile - a _sorrowful_ smile - full of regret and anguish, and when he pieces Yifan’s entire expression together, it looks as if he’s about to cry. Yifan - being the tall, broad-shouldered, long-nosed fellow that Zitao’s known him to be for the past two weeks - falters just then, looking down at the ground as though he may cast tears upon it, and says, “They were my ex-girlfriend.”

Zitao’s fingers slacken around his spoon as he remembers his talk with Evelyn about losing her husband, about confessing to her about his sexuality and getting such a warm reaction, and he feels the same pain he felt when Evelyn told him about her family. He remembers what it felt like to lose his mother, or when he woke up in the hospital for the first time since last seeing her and crying when it sank in that his mother was gone. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Yifan says after a moment. “Her name was Jessica. She was really nice, pretty, and we were - about to get engaged, actually. I had proposed to her four months before everything happened. I wanted to spend my whole life with her.”

They sink into an awkward silence, full of the crackling of the fire and the distant chirps of crickets, before Yifan sighs and breathes out an airy little laugh and says, “Sorry, you probably don’t like hearing about this kind of thing.”

The boy, however, rolls his eyes and pulls his blanket tighter around him, “Fuck you, I was listening.”

Yifan smiles and falls quiet as they dip their silverware into the bowl over the fire to wash them off and set them inside. Zitao relaxes back against the tree with his legs pulled up to his chest to hide them in the blanket, and he watches as Yifan disposes of the cans by tossing them into the trees and returning as he wipes his hands dutifully. 

Zitao watches him pull out his canteen to drink from, watches as he caps it and wipes the trails of water from his mouth and chin, and inhales steadily before saying, “So you’re straight.”

The man’s eyes flicker up to meet his and he smiles gently as he says, “I don’t really know what to call my sexuality. My friends used to say I was probably _pansexual_ but I just like who I like. I don’t have preferences.”

“Ah,” Zitao says passively, eyebrows somewhat raised. 

“What about you, huh?” Yifan asks, and Zitao’s face scrunches a little bit. “What’s yours?”

“As if I’m gonna tell you that shit.”

“What?” Yifan whines. “But I told you mine! That’s not fair.”

“Hey, shut the fuck up, alright? You give me headaches.”

The man pouts and pulls his legs out from underneath him before saying, “You’re so hypocritical. You tell me no freebies but you take information from me for free without doing your part, too.”

Zitao turns to him with furrowed eyebrows, as he says, “Are you trying to outsmart me, Yifan? Because if so, I’m a little bit intrigued. Alright, pond scum, you’ve got me. I’ll give you one free coupon to ask me about anything and I will be legally obligated, by the terms and conditions of our social agreement, to explain it to you in detail. And because I’m not going to go into detail about it, I’m gay.”

Yifan must not have been expecting that kind of an answer by the way his eyebrows raise and his eyes widen, as he says, “Are you really?” And much to Zitao’s disgust, a smile begins to form across those plump lips.

“Don’t even think about being a creep about it, Bighead.”

The man, however, reassures him with a gentle grin. “Don’t worry, I won’t. Alright, I can ask about anything, right?”

Zitao nods, “Anything. _One_ thing.”

Yifan inhales and nods his head as he thinks to himself for a moment, lips pursing and eyes wandering before they catch on Zitao again and he remembers what he had been curious about all day. “Tell me about your necklace.”

Startled, Zitao’s face falters a little bit and his cheeks flush, and Yifan actually becomes concerned that the boy is going to be sick - but then the boy reaches into his blanket cocoon and Yifan wants to tell him _it’s okay, you don’t need to force yourself, you don’t need to_ \- when Zitao lifts the black strand over his head and when he hands it over for Yifan to take into his own hands, Yifan sees that it’s a drop pendant with a white creme back, and in the center is a de-stemmed bright orange flower with dark brown blurred out into the edges of each petal. It’s been cast in a clear resin, and rests in his hand flatly, the cast walls geometrical like a vial that’s been cut in half. 

“It’s beautiful,” Yifan says without thinking, adjusting his hold on the pendant to see it better in the light of the fire, and he watches as the resin gleams and the orange of the petals seems to intensify near the fire. 

“It’s a fire lily,” Zitao tells him quietly, and when Yifan glances up, Zitao’s eyes are transfixed melancholically on his necklace in Yifan’s large hands, wary as though Yifan may break it. “It was a present for my ninth birthday. My best friend Sehun got it for me after his mother went to Madagascar for a business trip. It’s probably the only one in this country, so he had it resin-casted.”

“He sounds like a great best friend,” Yifan tells him with a bright smile. “Having his mom bring back a souvenir and designating it for her son’s best friend.”

“Yeah,” Zitao sighs, “but when I got admitted to Sacro, I never saw him again. I haven’t seen him in almost six years.”

“I’m so sorry, Tao,” Yifan coos to him, and Zitao shrugs his shoulders. “Looks like we’ve both lost some pretty important people in our lives, huh?”

The boy prostrates himself into a comfortable laying position before shrugging once more, and as his eyes close, he says, “Yeah, I guess so.”

Piteous, Yifan watches as he falls asleep practically in the blink of an eye and it’s laughable, honestly, how Zitao could be completely conversational one second and passed-out asleep the next. He wishes he could fall asleep that quickly. Teenagers. 

“Alright,” he whispers to himself in defeat. “Guess it’s time to sleep, then.”

He reaches over and lays Zitao’s pendant delicately next to him on the ground, settling the chain in a circle around the resin jewel, finds his own spot to curl up next to the fire with his head propped up on his backpack, and tries to get some shut-eye. 

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

_“Yifan, I said **no**!” _

_She yanks her hands from his hold and stomps her little feet, looking at him with tears in her eyes._

_“Why can’t we just stay here?” She asks, voice cracking on the edges and her breath wavers as the tears begin to fall. “Auntie Matilda lives up here, we can hide out with her. Just the two of us, like you always wanted.”_

_He tells her no, that it’s safer on the island, that nobody is there so nobody will find them and nobody will come looking for them ever again, and they can hide away to their heart’s desire._

_“I don’t want to go to the island, I told you that! Why don’t you ever listen to me? All I ever asked as for you to fucking **listen** to me, Yifan!” _

_A hard slap, a choked grunt._

_“Take me home,” she demands, halfway across the bridge already and almost there, almost there, just a little bit closer and they will be almost there. “I want to go back to Aunt Matilda.”_

_No, he tells her. We’re almost there._

_“I said **no**!!”_

_The loud, telltale squawking, and Yifan’s heart begins to rabbit wildly as he tries to reason with her, please, let’s go, hurry up, we can run and make it, we can make it, the gates are right there, we can make it -_

_She panicked, taking off towards the gate and they made it, they were safe now, they could build their new home together on the island with the greenhouse - and then the gates broke._

_Run, he screams, **run** -_

_\- but she doesn’t make it._

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“Yifan,” he calls out gently, watching in bated worry as the man writhes and twitches in his spot, limbs tensing and mouth opening and closing as if he’s trying to speak as if he’s trying to scream, but no sound is coming out. When Zitao moves closer, he can see the rolling of Yifan’s eyes beneath his eyelids and realizes the man is asleep, is trying to call out for help in his sleep and Zitao - Zitao doesn’t know what the fuck to do.

He tries shoving him a little bit, a gentle push on his upper arm, but it does close to nothing and now that he can see Yifan this closely in the light of the fire, he can see tear tracks streaming down the sides of his face beneath his temples. 

He’s having a nightmare, and Zitao’s pulse quickens because he never learned how to get someone out of one.

“ _Yifan_ ,” he tries again, this time standing up to kick him with the top of his foot, padding it against the guy’s elbow, and Yifan’s hand instinctively reaches out and wraps around his ankle and begins to coil, tighter, tighter, till it verges on painful and Zitao has to yank his foot out of the man’s subconscious hold. 

Is he supposed to wake him up? Is Yifan supposed to wake up at all? Is Yifan normally this deep of a sleeper?

Zitao sighs, resolve nearly gone, and shucks his blanket off from around his shoulders. Maybe whatever material is in it that makes it anxiety-relief will help Yifan come out of his nightmare - he hopes. 

He stretches the material across the man’s body and nearly jumps out of his skin when one of Yifan’s hands finds his, and he hisses as Yifan’s grip tightens once again, and Jesus _Christ_ , what kind of bad dream is he having?

“Let go of me, you,” Zitao mumbles to himself, trying to cover Yifan one-handed as Yifan clings to him for seemingly dear life, as he squirms under Zitao’s hold and Zitao has to fight to get him to stop.

Then - after what feels like an hour, slowly, increasingly, _gradually_ \- the shaking and the writhing begins to slow until it begins to stop, and Zitao sighs as Yifan’s fingers begin to loosen. “Nearly took my fuckin’ hand off, you,” the boy mutters tiredly, and reaches out curiously to trail the pads of his fingers along Yifan’s skin. The man’s hood has fallen in his unconscious tussle and his skin is cold and clammy, and when Zitao reaches up with a calloused thumb, he carefully wipes Yifan’s half-dried tears away.

“Now go to sleep… Bighead.”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

God, he slept like _shit_ last night. Why’d he give in to his feelings and tell Zitao all about Jessica right before sleeping? He _knows_ that you dream about the last thing you think about. His heart aches after the memory, suddenly sullen and suddenly lovelorn, and he realizes how much he misses Jessica.

He’d dreamt about her, dreamt about the moment of her death, about the very moment he lost her and the very moment he watched her soul leave her body, as he stood there _useless_ as anything and let them take the love of his life, let them take her away from him, and had sobbed his heart out until there had been nothing left of him.

It’s not quite daytime yet, but the sun is beginning to come up, judging by the blooming sapphire tones in the sky, which means it must be the ripe hour where Yifan would have to be waking up for work if he worked in a normal, virus-free world. 

He stretches, sitting up, and feels material drag down his lap. Mind fuzzy, he looks down to see the dark swath of Zitao’s blanket draped across his lap, and when he looks up, he sees Zitao curled up in a ball with his head propped up against his backpack, sleeping.

The fire had long died out - but when had Zitao given him his blanket? The notion makes Yifan smile slowly, creeping across his lips against his will, and it warms his heart to see Zitao acting so sweet to him all of a sudden.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” he says more or less to himself, as he stands and takes Zitao’s blanket with him, and with careful hands, he lays it across the boy and covers him with it from ear to toe, “but thank you.”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“God, I _love_ the smell of the infection in the city.”

Yifan raises an eyebrow at him and tucks his hands into his sweatshirt pockets. “Is that what that smell is? I thought you just needed a shower.”

The boy has his knife out in his hand, at the ready, before Yifan can even blink, “Watch it, you little _shit_.”

They crossed over into Winnipeg just about an hour ago, and Yifan had been in awe by the sight of the massively tall skyscrapers and the grandiose Victorian-style churches. Yifan, being strangely soft-hearted for someone nearing thirty, has such a weak spot for fantastic scenery. “It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?” 

“Eh,” Zitao shrugs, hands on his belt. “It’s okay.”

“Oh, oh no, my connoisseur heart is breaking,” Yifan says, pretending to take camera pictures with his fingers and wishing that he could, that cameras still worked and that they still had ways to charge them. “Maybe one day I’ll get a Polaroid camera and I’ll take a picture so you can have it, yeah? Those don’t need to be charged.”

“Yifan, they need _batteries._ Good luck finding that shit, you’re gonna need it.”

Their trek through the town is large - quite literally, as the city seems to go on _forever_ , miles of abandoned street markets and gas stations and high-rise apartments. “Rich people lived here,” Zitao comments snarkily. “This is a rich man’s world.”

“There’s probably a lot of security around here, too,” Yifan responds. “We should stick to the outskirts, I’m not ready to die just quite yet.”

Zitao snorts at that, “Yeah, trust me, if anyone’s gonna kill you, it’s gonna be me.”

In the distance, Yifan can see over the high-rise buildings and the age-thinned smog of the city - the outline of a shorter, rectangular building, and he’s got the itching feeling that it just might be a hospital. “I think we should stop there,” he says as he points to the building, and he watches as Zitao raises his eyebrows casually.

“Hospitals sound alright,” he says. “Probably medication to loot there, and probably more disinfectant, too.”

“They kind of skeeve me out,” Yifan confesses with a little laugh. “Working as a nurse in a little sanctuary was alright, but I don’t like being in big hospitals. They feel too much like death.”

“My mom was a nurse,” Zitao tells him as they round a corner past a grand, expensive-looking hotel and head towards what looks like a gate to the outside of the business sector of the city, where the roads thin out into grass and streets and trees, which Zitao would prefer any day to minimize the risk of getting caught by the military. 

“Really?” Yifan asks in wonder. “What was her experience like?”

Frowning, Zitao gives him a bothered glance. “How should I know? She quit when I was like six years old.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

The road they come across at the mouth of the buildings turns out to be the start of a highway, backed up for miles with unused, abandoned cars as far as Zitao’s eyes can see. “Looks like everyone left in a hurry,” he comments as they make their way down the highway entrance road. “They even left their cars.”

“The traffic was really bad,” Yifan explains. “Too many people trying to get out too quickly, so a lot of people just decided to go on foot.”

“Ah.”

What is more than likely several hours later, they step foot off of the highway exit and head towards the entrance to the lot which is sloped and elongated, riddled with debris and shrapnel from torn-apart cars and possibly weaponry. Standing in an abandoned hospital lot that looks as though a tornado ripped through it, feels eerily apocalyptic, and Yifan doesn’t like it.

“Thank you,” Zitao says suddenly, and Yifan’s attention snaps to him as he practically jumps out of his skin, “by the way. For - you know, helping me get here.”

“Oh,” Yifan replies, a little bit startled. “You’re welcome. Should I give you a congratulatory hug now?”

Appalled and disgusted, Zitao’s face curls into a grimace as he slaps Yifan across the bicep and yells out, “You fucking sicko! Go jump off the roof!”

Humored, Yifan laughs and begins to run right after him.

Zitao jogs to the entrance of the building and gives a good tug on the handles, but no luck - they don’t budge. “Shit,” he cusses under his breath. “I should have expected it to be locked up. Alright, guess I have to break it in.”

“I - uh, wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Yifan says sheepishly beside him, and Zitao - with one leg raised in the air, ready to kick the door down - stares at him.

“What?”

“Hospital doors and windows were all replaced with plexiglass about ten years ago,” the man explains. “You know, that glass that doesn’t break on impact?”

“What fucking - whose bright idea was _that_?”

Yifan deadpans and says, “The prime minister.”

“Well that’s just great, isn’t it?” Zitao throws his hands up in the air and takes several steps in a winding circle. “Now we’ll have to find another way in.”

“We could look around the side and through the back?”

So, with Zitao in front and Yifan in tow, they creep around the perimeter of the building, wary of anything that could jump out of them or any security that could fire shots at them at any given point. They’re crossing onto government territory, which is forbidden outside of quarantined zones, and since this city seems like it’s been long since given up on, Zitao estimates they probably haven’t quarantined it in nearly five years.

The perimeter of the building - much to their luck - is skirted with tall bushes and untrimmed hedging, which means they can very easily hide between the building and the hedges so nobody on the outside can see them.

Zitao leads them onto the sidewalk that wraps around the building and through the hedging when Yifan says - “Hey, wait a second.”

The boy turns on his heel with anger on his tongue as he sees Yifan completely focused on the flowers blooming from the hedging, hands hovering near them as though he plans to touch, and Zitao strides forward to smack his hand away from the plant. “Are you _insane_? They could have the infection on them! Stop looking at flowers and let’s go!”

“No, wait,” Yifan repeats himself. “These are the plants I use for the repellant.”

Now, the boy furrows his eyebrows in confusion. “What plants?”

“Oh, well this one is _Lilium lancifolium_. The Scientific term for the tiger lily, which… actually…” he trails off, focus sharpening as he bends to eye-level with the lilies. “Isn’t this the same kind of flower you have, Zitao?”

The boy frowns, “No way, those are from Madagascar only,” yet, with his heart racing like this, he can’t help but find himself stepping closer and gazing at the bright orange, ochre-speckled flowers. One glance is all he needs and he realizes it’s true - they’re the exact same flower. “No, Sehun said they were called _fire_ lilies.”

“Well,” Yifan starts, standing back up to look at him. “They can sometimes be called that due to their fiery color. Their real name is the orange tiger lily.”

“No,” Zitao insists with a shake of his head. “That’s impossible, they _only_ grow on the African coasts and the island of Madagascar, they don’t grow up here in the cold.”

Yifan frowns, trying to make sense of it, and then it dawns on him. “Oh shit, that’s right. Back in the early years of the rebellion, we did send out a battalion to other continents to try and find a cure. They did come back with some foreign foliage, but we mainly cultivated it for research purposes. We had it back in the greenhouses where we could imitate the warmth of their preferred climates.”

Zitao sighs, “Fuck, this is really bad. This means that our climate has either warmed so much that we can now locally sustain this kind of life, or the infection has mutated the cells and caused it to adapt to the colder weather. Which, either way, means this place is crawling with the virus. We’re in a fucking _hot spot_.”

“Oh my God,” Yifan exhales. “Okay, I won’t touch anything. But I still want the flowers - ”

“Yifan, I will pick your stupid flowers for you, okay? Move.”

Zitao procures an empty zip-up baggy from his backpack and immediately begins to pick the blooms from the hedges, ignoring Yifan’s concerned whines off to his side of _wait, didn’t you just say they’re infected? you have to handle them with the gloves on!_ and Zitao threatens him to get him to pipe down so they don’t get caught. He makes sure to get some of the seeds, as well, not sure what parts of the plants Yifan utilizes for his concoction. “Don’t worry about me, Jesus Christ. When we get the time to camp out for the night, we can start a fire and boil the flowers, okay? Sheesh.”

“Oh, that’s perfect!” Yifan cheers, which somehow doesn’t go along with his naturally deep voice. “That’s how I make the stuff anyway, I boil everything together and use the liquid.”

“Stupid fruit boy. Can’t believe I’m picking stupid seeds for a stranger’s stupid repellant.”

“Hey,” Yifan warns him playfully, “be nice, and maybe I’ll give you some.”

Zitao stops at his words and slowly turns to him with a complex look on his face. “ _Maybe_ you’ll give me some? Uh, that’s not how this fucking works. I got you to Winnipeg, and I got you your stupid seeds. There’s no _maybe_ , you owe it to me as repayment.”

“Okay,” Yifan sighs. “But you’re gonna have to make me.”

He expects the swing before it even happens - expects the way Zitao lashes out in an attempt to punch him in the gut, and having anticipated it, Yifan is able to move away from the hit and catch the boy’s tiny wrist in his hand and hold it above his head. With his free hand, he slides his small bottle of repellent into his back pants pocket. “Nope, not like that.”

“What do you mean _not like that_? What do you want from me?”

“Admit that you need me,” Yifan says smugly, leering over the boy and watching him struggle. “Admit that you need me and I’ll share the repellant with you.”

“In your wildest dreams, moron,” Zitao snaps, and Yifan shrugs as he releases his hands.

“No repellant for you, then.”

The man makes a move to turn and walk away back towards the rear of the building, and Zitao is gingerly rubbing the fingerprint marks on his wrists when he notices the small, nondescript white bottle in the man’s back pocket. _Leave it out of your sight, and it’s mine._

With a swift dive, he reaches for the bottle to snatch it from the man’s back pocket - but Yifan’s hands are quicker, grabbing his wrists and pulling them out of his jeans, “Whoa, hey, alright, I think it’s a little bit early in our relationship for you to have your hands down my pants.”

The boy’s face falls in utter shock as he says, “Fuck you!” 

There’s a swift kick being dug into the man’s calf and his leg gives out beneath him, causing him to sink to below Zitao’s eye level, and he chokes when the boy straddles his back with his legs and wraps a strong forearm around his throat, and locks it with his hand under his elbow, choking him. “I help you, and you help me. That was our deal!”

Yifan chokes, hands clawing at Zitao’s skin and making the boy gasp out in pain as Yifan digs his nails into his soft flesh - 

\- and Zitao’s heart rabbits wildly as a twig snaps nearby, and within seconds, gunshots ring out practically right beside them.

“ _Get down_!”

 

 

 

 

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	5. Chapter 5

 

 

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I: Infected

(ĭn-fěkt'èd) _noun._

the state of having been contaminated with a pathogenic microorganism or agent.

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For how many bullets he’s had to dodge in the past month-and-a-half, Yifan feels like he could easily become wealthy if each bullet had been a one-hundred-dollar bill. For how many of those bullets have been a certain teenager’s own, Yifan feels amazed with every day that passes that he has not already become a slice of Swiss cheese. 

In a singular strip of time, Zitao has thrust a tensed knee down onto the high of the man’s back and Yifan can only gasp in a strangled breath as the air leaves him on the descent, hands bracketing him above the chafe of the concrete and cheek pressed to the rough as he both hears and feels Zitao’s hand slide the handgun from his hip holster and cock it back quickly, panickingly, before his voice breaks on a shout of, “ _Don’t come any closer_!” and grunting, Yifan attempts to escape beneath him, sliding a numbed hand out from underneath his own weight to reach for the bow strapped to his back, until Zitao’s foot comes down on his forearm and he hisses quietly and retracts his efforts.

From this angle, Yifan can only barely peer through the cracks in the foliage, feeling too much like a bottomfeeder hidden beneath a predator as it feeds, and even in the daytime haze, he catches a glimpse of the glow of a tactical light illuminating Zitao’s stressed features above him. He’s actually shocked that he can hear a slight bend in the boy’s voice, almost as if he’s frightened, but then Yifan has to remind himself that it is Zitao he is talking about and that Zitao doesn’t normally experience fear. Yifan wonders, with choked-off breaths under the pressure of Zitao’s weight, if perhaps he’s more nervous than anything. 

“I said don’t fucking _move_!” Zitao shouts in a shrill tone, and Yifan catches a break as the boy takes a half-step backward and lifts his weight from Yifan’s trapezius, and the man manages to find his footing as he slides the bow from his backpack latch and stretches an arrowhead along the hitch and pulls back as he faces their perpetrators - two officers with similar gunmetal-glazed helmets hiding their faces and equivocal military-seeming guns prostrated in gloved hands in defense, tactical lights on.

He lowers his bow slightly in fear, shuddering out a breath as he glances over to the boy who has his jaw set, muscles tensed, and whispers, “Don’t, they’re officers.”

Silly he decides he’s acted, because Zitao is never somebody that Yifan can predict and perhaps he should have expected the way the boy’s lips quirk in a shifty little smirk, should have expected the snide chuckle he lets out as he cocks his chin and narrows his eyes in a humorous gaze, and says, “Like hell they are. They’re just a couple of hunters with stolen gear.”

Yifan glances back at them with the newfound information and his bow slackens. The hunters make no sudden moves, just keeping their guns raised at eye level as if waiting for any sudden movements as if waiting for Zitao to attack, and he wonders if they really are hunters. Pretty quiet hunters, he decides, not really being used to hunters holding their tongues. 

“This is my turf,” Zitao tells them in an eerily calm calamity. “You take one more step forward, and I blow both of your skulls right the fuck open.”

The man’s brows furrow as he registers the words; what exactly makes Zitao so brave? In a world full of despair and bereavement that he can turn his nose so confidently up at the face of demise and laugh at its shadow, Yifan wonders if he’s lost his mind or even his will to live that he’d become so numb to the threat of dying. His attention is fractured by a click beside him and he glances over at the hunters, one of which has signaled to the other with a raised palm to take a step back, and Yifan can see the slightest shape of the hunter’s eyes behind the mask as he glances from him to Zitao and back again, as he says, “That wouldn’t be a wise move, considering you’re crossing into monitored territory.”

“So what?” Zitao asks with sharp eyes. “I was here first, so you can kiss my ass and the prime minister can fucking fight me himself.”

“Zitao, stop,” Yifan whispers beside him, and the boy curls up his lips in a scowl and attempts to lash out a sideways kick, but Yifan is quick in looking down and side-stepping it, and the hunter on the other side of the trees lowers his guns and takes a look around. “We really mean no harm, we’re just trying to pass through the city. We’re not trying to steal anything or hurt anyone.”

“It’d be more believable if your little friend were smart enough to lower his weapon,” the hunter says, and Yifan looks over at the boy beside him, just as rigid and countered as he’d been. 

“Fuck you,” Zitao spits on a whisper, and the hunter’s face goes hard as he raises his gun once again and the glow of the tactical light washes over his features once more, and Yifan panics and shoves an arm forward with a shouted _stop!_ and stands in Zitao’s view, concealing the boy with the breadth of his back and shoulders, and he makes direct eye contact with the hunter as he lowers his bow back onto his bag latch and raises his palms. 

Zitao, however, is just as fiery as ever as he lands a rough punch square in the middle of the man’s back that makes cold, tingly intensity shoot up his spine and makes him hiss, but Yifan stands his ground even as Zitao snaps at him from behind, “Can you move out of the fucking _way_ , you big ox?”

Sighing, Yifan shrugs his shoulders in a move of lost hope, “We really don’t have much to give you if you’re looking for food, but we have some water if you’d like that. We just really need to get through the city and we’ll be out of your hair for good,” he tells the hunter, heart oscillating rapidly against his ribs as his pulse thickens in his throat and palms. “I promise.”

“Excuse me?” The boy scoffs at him, and Yifan’s back bows as a bony elbow strikes him in the thick of his shoulder blade, causing Yifan to turn back to him with an exhausted countenance. “Who in the fuck are you to give away our shit like that? They’re _hunters_! They can go rob somebody else for all I fucking care!” 

“You’d be wise to hold your tongue when held to adversity,” the hunter speaks monotonously, and Yifan’s shoulders sag as he returns his attention to those eyes behind the mask. “It’d be foolish to selfishly roam this bloodshed country and then challenge those who hold power over you, don’t you think?”

“Not at all,” Zitao responds with a smirk on his lips as he steps out from the shadow of Yifan’s body. “I think it’d be foolish for you to think I’m actually intimidated by you. I’m crossing the city whether you like it or not and if you don’t want to let me through, I’m not afraid to leave you here in pieces.”

Yifan sighs exasperatedly and takes the opportunity to grab the boy by the arm and turn him about-face, which in turn makes the boy’s face fall as he begins to attempt to yank his arm free and howl about personal space, but Yifan isn’t a fan of dying spontaneously. “Look,” he says briskly. “I don’t care if you are apathetic about being shot dead but I, for one, am not. So for once, I really need you to just shut up so they don’t kill us.”

“Let them, then!” Zitao proclaims as he lowers his gun and tries to drive his elbow down into the man’s bicep, but Yifan retracts his grip before he can. “And get your hands off me or I’ll have you skinned!”

Much to their surprise, the hunter retracts his gun and lets it hang by his side as he drops his hands, and Zitao’s eyes narrow. “You two aren’t from around here,” the hunter says in a slightly higher tone. “Why do you want to cross this city so badly, anyway? Don’t you know how dangerous it is to be out in these parts?”

“None of your business, you fucker,” Zitao spits, and Yifan grabs him by the arm once more and tells him to be quiet. 

Then, the hunter’s shoulders shake as if in laughter, and Yifan’s expression tightens. “I don’t think I’ve come across anyone quite like you two. One of you completely unafraid of a bullet to the heart, and the other one unafraid of sacrificing their self for that bullet to the heart. Ain’t you afraid of what might happen?”

Yifan blinks, something in the man’s tone telling him the question was meant only for him, and sucks in a deep breath as he glances away from their foliage barrier in a nervous twitch. “Who says I’m not?”

Methodically, the hunter’s shoulders slowly start to roll back into a statuesque posture, and in a moment of thickened haste, Yifan’s curiosity peaks when the hunter reaches up with a gloved hand, just a sliver of hair-peppered skin exposed above the wrist cuff, and slides the partition of his helmet all the way back, exposing a face much more youthful than Yifan had initially expected from someone so unyielding.  
   
“I like you, stranger,” the hunter tells him matter-of-factly, eyes bright and big and glossy, complexion oddly puerile yet freckled along his nose with slight discoloration back towards the hollows of his cheeks. “What are you two trying to get into this hospital for, anyway?”

He blinks, a smidgen addled. “We’re just trying to look for supplies. We really mean no harm.”

“Don’t get any bright ideas,” Zitao snaps at the hunter beside him, and when Yifan’s gaze wanders over, he notices that the boy has the handgun back in his holster, but his knife is missing from its slot. “I don’t share.”

Then, the hunter’s pink, chapped lips spread back into an angular grin, and he glances over his shoulder and motions offhandedly for the forgotten hunter to step forward to his original position by his side, and he looks back at the boy with mirth in his eyes. “What a coincidence,” the first hunter says, expression humble, “because I do.” 

He sticks a hand out into the unbridled space, an invitation for bridged peace, and glances between the two strangers as he waits for them to accept his gesture. Then, the taller of the two returns the favor and shakes his hand, as the teenager beside him broods away in his own personal bubble. “Baekhyun,” the hunter says with a curt nod, and the man shaking his hand responds with a kind smile. 

“Yifan,” he says, and this Baekhyun fellow, as affable as he is, glances back over his shoulder and gestures to the hunter by his side.

“This is my partner, Chanyeol,” he says, and the second hunter - the _partner, Chanyeol_  - slides up his helmet and gives Yifan his own hand to shake. This Chanyeol fellow is taller, broader, with wider lips and slightly dimmed eyes, and when he gives him a tight-lipped grin too dopey to call professional, Yifan eats his subconscious words about them being intimidating. 

“Nice to meet you, Yifan,” that Chanyeol guy says, and Yifan’s interest is piqued as he notes just how tall the man is and just how broad his hands are - Yifan’s never before met someone quite as tall as he and quite as largely-endowed as he, so this is a first for him. “Sorry for shooting at you, and all.”

“Nice to meet you, I guess,” Yifan offers with a nervous smile. “Thanks for - y’know, not blowing our heads off.”

“And what about you?” Baekhyun says, and when Yifan looks at him, he sees that the man has a smarmy grin plastered across his face and arms crossed over his chest, and is battling it out with Yifan’s violent little shadow in a contest of who blinks last, and Yifan bites his tongue. “You’re awfully quiet all of a sudden, little one.”

“Don’t call me little,” Zitao spits at him with his upper lip curled back, fingers clenching around the handle of his knife as he raises it waist-high in impending threat, gaze furious and wary. “And don’t touch me with your grimy hunter hands, either.”

“Sorry,” Yifan says softly and steps over into Zitao’s space to divert his attention away, “he doesn’t like physical contact. And you,” he turns his words back to the boy and frowns, “no knifing our guests.”

“Guests?” The boy blanches. “They fucking tried to kill us, and you’re calling them _guests_? Are you out of your mind?”

“You tried to do the same!” He argues with a smile gracing his lips. “You threatened to kill both of them, too. And you were a hunter too, so you can’t get mad at them for just doing what they do. Sorry,” Yifan repeats himself to the hunters, and they give him only gentle smiles in return. “This is Tao.”

“Tao,” Baekhyun says, the syllable rolling on his tongue. “Nice name. You from around these parts?”

“Don’t ask me questions,” Zitao mumbles with fire in his eyes, and rips himself from Yifan’s attentive grasp. “You never fucking listen to me, so don’t expect me to let you come crying to me when they rob you in your sleep, you stupid idiot.”

The boy turns his back and begins to strike the windows of the building with his shoe sole, attempting to break through and grant himself entry, but to no avail. 

“Sorry,” Yifan says once more. “He’s usually like that.”

“ _Stop talking about me_!”

“Is he your brother?” Chanyeol asks with a crooked grin, completely disregarding the command. “You two don’t really look alike.”

“No,” Yifan shakes his head. “I met him outside of Abbotsford. We’ve been trying to get into Winnipeg ever since and we’ve been - _somehow_ staying alive ever since.”

The smaller one between them laughs as he says, “He doesn’t seem to enjoy people pointing out his age, does he?”

“Not really,” he replies. “He’s fifteen but he’d have you fooled for twenty.”

“Can you all shut the fuck up and make yourselves useful and help me get inside?” Zitao grunts, eyebrows furrowed, as he slides the blade of his knife back into the handle. 

“We will get inside momentarily,” Yifan smiles at him and holds up his palms. “For now, we are entertaining guests and I would like for you to be on your _best_ behavior.”

“Fuck off,” Zitao rolls his eyes. “I can’t fucking stand you, sometimes.”

The boy stomps away and begins to search the glass walls of the foyer for an entry, and Yifan sighs. If only Zitao could see that not all people are bad people, and although it is a survival of the fittest, there is always safety in numbers. Yifan wonders if perhaps he’s being too naive.

“You know,” Baekhyun tells him as he slides his gloves off, and Yifan watches as he procures two small, smooth-looking hands, “there’s a cracked door around the back that some Sacro agents broke into when they ransacked the city two summers ago. Never fixed it, but the infected aren’t smart enough to open it themselves because the hinges are rusted and the doorknob is on the inside to open out rather than in. And, you know, feel free to take your time debating it. I can’t expect you to trust us like that this quickly, anyway, since we did try to kill you.”

Oh, that’s right. “Why did you shoot at us, then, if you weren’t trying to kill us?”

“Precaution,” Chanyeol interjects, “and also intimidation. Most hunters will reject a stand-off and run away when they think they’re being gunned down by state officers.”

So that’s why they don the full militia uniforms. It’s actually a fantastic idea, Yifan considers, and he wonders why he and Zitao never came across the idea on their own. 

“It really is for survival,” Baekhyun continues the train of thought. “Sorry for giving you trouble, we thought you were trying to sneak up on us and steal from us.”

Yifan smiles and his shoulders raise in a shrug. “Don’t worry about it. We probably would have done the same. Truce?”

The two hunters exchange glances as if in a debate, before nodding and giving Yifan smiles. “Truce.”

“Anyway,” the shorter hunter says as he gestures to the bushes separating them. “We’d be happy to help you search the hospital, and if you decide you kind-of trust us, we have a hideout not far from here and we’ve got some food there if you’d like to have something to eat, yeah?”

“No rush on making a decision on that,” the taller of the two tells him with a chuckle, and Yifan glances over at Zitao, who’s much further away and is nearly shrouded by the multilateral corners of the building as he looks for a way inside. “You’d probably have to go talk to your partner, anyway.”

Yifan knows very well that Zitao would sooner shove a knife into his flesh and leave him to bleed out than accept help from strangers, as Zitao still won’t even accept help from _him -_  someone who is no longer a stranger yet not quite a friend either, but Yifan does not barter with the gamble of death. The longer they linger outside in the open, the more they risk getting found by real officers or, if they’re unlucky, infected. “Sounds good,” Yifan finds himself saying as he reaches behind himself for his bow, “but out of respect for Tao, could I possibly beg you two to keep a safe distance? He’s got a very short temper and I’d like to not have you killed.”

“Of course,” Baekhyun tells him. “No worries.”

   
  


 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

While Yifan feigns martyrdom and attempts to mediate the enmity between them all, Zitao has not said a word to their new guests in over an hour, and Yifan finds himself apologizing for his sake more times in the span of that time than he probably has in his whole life. 

“He also gets grumpy when he’s hungry sometimes,” Yifan tells them in another attempt to excuse Zitao’s abrasive behavior, and is pleasantly surprised when the duo seats themselves on the floor upstairs in an abandoned unit, _safer than downstairs where anyone can walk in_ as Baekhyun had told him. Yifan isn’t the least bit surprised when Zitao mopes by himself stood against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, as he glares at them from afar and refuses to partake in the feast of cold, canned soup and a heart-to-heart chat.

Chanyeol fishes out a can from the depth of his rucksack and hands it to Yifan, and Yifan is grateful as he takes it and feels even more honored when Baekhyun passes him a knife - his _own_ knife, now - to puncture the top of the can and pop it open. 

And much to Yifan’s surprise, they somehow manage to coax Zitao off of the wall with a can of chicken noodle and a pair of warm smiles, like tempting a housepet to come over, yet the boy doesn’t say even so much as thank you as he sinks beside Yifan and presses the point of his switchblade down into the aluminum.

“Am I allowed to ask to know more about you two?” Yifan requests after a spoonful of congealed broth. “Like where you come from, why you became fraudulent-officer hunters, how you met each other.”

“We were infected hunters on Victoria Island,” Baekhyun tells him with those bright eyes, tawny hair peeking out from under the cap of his helmet. The other hunter sits adjacent with their knees nearly touching, his helmet in the crevice of his lap, dark hair framing his temples. “Well, still are. You never really _stop_ being infected hunters when there never stop being infected to kill.”

“We’ve been hunting for close to twenty years,” Chanyeol continues, and Yifan’s heart practically plummets into his stomach. _Twenty_ years? “The rebellion peaked back in the eighties, and that’s when we had what was called the Wave of Hunger when between eighty-two and ninety-eight, the infection escalated due to how many babies were being born as hungries.”

“Holy shit,” Yifan swears under his breath. “The rebellion really dates back that far?”

“Oh yeah,” Baekhyun answers, and when Yifan asks their ages, _myself twenty-seven and Yeol is thirty-two_ is the answer he’s given. “We met actually around ten years ago when we were both holding down the north base on the island while most of our groups fled or were lost guarding the gates. We had a pretty bad strike back maybe six years ago when most of the hungries were being rounded up and hunted because that organization Sacrosanctum started collecting them and started testing to find a cure and all that.”

Then, their attention is redirected to a small clink as the teenager on the outlying edge of their confession circle sets his can down on the linoleum and looks up at them with heed. “You ever heard of the Sacro Runaway?”

The hunters’ eyebrows raise once the boy speaks unexpectedly after his quiet spell, and Yifan looks over at him with the plastic spoon stilled between his teeth, caught off-guard. “Oh yeah, that was the talk of the entire west coast for years,” Chanyeol answers his question with the shadow of a smirk. “All the hungries that Sacro had holed up in every one of their locations took off within the same week and the organization shut down the next month. I think I heard that the leader of them all was jailed for medical homicide and extreme negligence after that.”

Snickering silently, Zitao sets his tongue in his cheek; they’re nothing but a couple of presumptuous wise-asses, aren’t they? Knowing everything and upstaging him like it’s their job and their right. “Word on the street is the entire province has got a reward set out for them if anyone catches them.”

Across the way, however, Yifan’s insides curl as the words bounce around in his cerebrum. Why would there be a ransom reward for Zitao? Well, he supposed perhaps it had to do with the breaking of the law since, at the time, it was the law for anyone in danger to be placed in the sanction’s care - right? At least that’s the most he’s gathered from his choppy conversations with the runaway himself, yet something in the back of his mind tells him it'd be better to keep his mouth shut than expose Zitao and have him killed. If he ran away, he must have had a good reason for doing so and if he wasn't comfortable enough to already have told him why, then that reason is none of Yifan's business.

“Yeah, but I think the hype for the search has died down a lot,” Chanyeol continues with lax shoulders and dazed eyes. “Maybe because most of the people looking for the runaway have probably died themselves,” he cracks with a laugh, which makes his partner chuckle beside him and shakes his head.

“It was a huge reward too,” Baekhyun continues. “I don’t remember how much, but it was a lot.”

Zitao’s eyes fall out of focus for a brief moment as his mind floods in flashback, as memories roll back into play and he begins to recall everything he’s been through - including the time when that officer had Evelyn up against the wall with a gun pressed to her abdomen. “Five hundred,” he says quietly, gazing unfocused into the open air, his spoon stilled between knuckles, “thousand.”

“Yeah, that’s how much it was!” Chanyeol blurts out. “What, did you try finding the runaway yourself, Tao?”

If only he could call it that - _finding himself_. How melodramatic. “Something like that.”

Something is strange about Zitao’s attitude, Yifan settles upon in his thoughts. While there are many things Zitao is at all times - brazen, loud, rude, ill-mannered - he’s not usually this enigmatic in his words. Among the fog, Yifan gets the vibe that it’s a topic Zitao does not personally enjoy to be reminded of and would more than likely not enjoy being forced to delve deeper, so ever the sycophant, Yifan changes topics. “So you two said you were partners for ten years?”

“Oh, not quite,” Baekhyun tells him with mirth in his voice. “We met each other ten years ago, and linked up shortly after, but we didn’t become partners until close to three years ago, now.”

The man’s lips part with a soft sound, shocked. “You two were alone that whole time? Why didn’t you link up sooner than that? You know, _safety in numbers_ and all that.”

“ _Yifan_ ,” Baekhyun laughs. “We’ve been a team for ten years but have been partners for two. _Life_ partners.”

Oh - they’re a _thing._ “Wait, really?” He asks with a blossoming smile on his face, and absentmindedly lowers his empty can as his chest blooms in warmth. “You two look really cute together. How did you two come to meet each other and become fond of each other? Or, how did you find your way to the same base?”

“Do you ever stop asking the same questions over and over, Bighead?” Zitao snaps next to him, and Yifan pouts as his questions simmer in the air. “You’re giving me a headache.”

“No worries,” Chanyeol tells him with a cordial grin. “Actually, Baekhyun and I had grown up on opposite ends of the island, he in the north and I in the south. When the rebellion happened, my parents had packed everything and moved north towards the Victoria base where they also had the Victoria branch of Sacrosanctum, just in case they ever needed any help. Well, when I turned about thirteen I think I was, I’d gone out to the base under the guise that I was a cherub, homeless and helpless and in dire need of food and medicine, what I called my classic _lie-and-cry_ combo. Anyway, I’d come home one day from brown-nosing supplies and I walked into my house to find it broken into through the windows and I found my parents’ dead bodies all mangled up across the sofa.”

“Oh my God,” Yifan winces, face scrunching up. “I’m so sorry, that sounds - unimaginable, really.”

“Hey, no sweat,” the hunter continues. “After that, I’d returned to the base crying and screaming and anxious because my parents were dead, and I grew up there ever since.”

“And I was an orphan,” Baekhyun pitches in with a hand raised in attendance. “My mom died on the base when I was a baby so all of the neonatal nurses and midwives took care of me until I was an adult.”

“We met by accident during the Wave of Hunger,” Chanyeol continues. “I had gotten struck by some shrapnel from a nail bomb that detonated too close to the front lines, and some of the pieces went into my stomach, so I was rushed to the infirmary to get sewn up and whatnot and Baekhyun had been an emergency nurse specifically for the National Guard at the time. I was put on a stretcher and told a nurse would be around to help me, the whole shebang. So then lo and behold, Baekhyun was appointed to remove the nails and aluminum from my abdomen and sew me back up, and we kind of fell in love right then and there.”

“We beat around the bush about it for a long time,” Baekhyun explains with a twinkle in his eye. “Not that we were afraid of admitting it, but we tried to play it off like it was a crush instead of something cheesy like love at first sight.”

“Then I proposed two and a half years ago,” Chanyeol tells them, and Yifan’s heart soars at the sheer purity of the story. “And even though we couldn’t have a big extravagant wedding because the world is in shambles, he said yes.”

“You two are the absolute cutest,” Yifan tells them with glossy eyes, and the hunters laugh at his honesty. “That is so sweet. I look forward to finding love for myself one day.”

“You will,” Baekhyun says in a tender voice, features gleaming. “It will come to you.”

“So what about you two?” The taller hunter asks again, interrupting and regaining the track of the conversation. “You two any bigwig’s sons, or anything like that?”

“Oh, no,” Yifan stammers with a nervously crooked grin. “I’m from the Nanaimo base and I was a neonatal nurse since the time I was a young teenager. Didn’t really have a family, they all passed at different points in time, or other. I came across into the mainland to escape the island, and I… well, I got robbed and shot by a bunch of hunters and basically got left for dead. Then Tao came in,” he says with a half-hearted gesture toward the boy, and is greeted with an angry stare in return, “and actually took the bullet out of me and patched me up and saved my life.”

“Only because you wouldn’t stop with your incessant bitching and whining,” Zitao snarls. “How can I leave you alone when you don’t shut up?”

“He tried to kill me again after that,” Yifan continues, and he can’t help the laugh that escapes him when Zitao leans over and swings a punch in the direction of Yifan’s groin, but misses when Yifan closes his knees together and leans to the side. “Hey, watch it! I need that!”

“I fucking saved your ass _again_ after that, what kind of shit are you feeding them? Don’t get it twisted!”

Quietly, one hunter watches on in whimsy as he begins to sort the pieces of the puzzle and press them into place. “Are you two,” he begins, wittily bawdy with suggestive movements of his shoulders, “a thing?”

“ _No_!” The boy barks within milliseconds and both hunters wince and begin to glance around in panic that they’d alerted whoever may be near, but when they deem the coast clear, they return to the conversation. “Never in a hundred years would I do anything of the sort with that idiot.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Yifan says with a pout, and a punch is being shoved into his shoulder as he speaks. 

“He’s quite a feisty one, Yifan,” Baekhyun tells him with a joyous expression, and Yifan can’t help but be bashful and humble. 

“I know,” he grins. “He’s adorable, isn’t he?”

Unsurprisingly, pain spikes up his thighs when the handle of the boy’s knife attempts puncture into the thick of his right flank, and Yifan hisses and takes hold of himself protectively. “Don’t ever call me adorable ever again,” the boy warns him with dark irises. “Next time, it won’t be the handle, and I’ll pop your kneecap right off. And stop sitting so close to me, you fucking reek.”

Seconds pass as Baekhyun takes the liberty to dice up the tension by standing and taking each person’s dishes from them and heading down to the foyer to toss them outside. While he’s gone, the air turns uneasy, cumbersome as heat from the boy’s fury practically steams from his pores. The hunter eyes them up, one avoiding eye contact and one refusing to stop looking, and he’s certain he’s never met such a contradicting pair in his life - one of which is selfless and timid, while the other is selfish and outright. 

“So, might I ask where you two are headed?” He decides to ask to cut the deafening silence, and Yifan’s reticent gaze washes over him. “The way you put it was that you were passing through Winnipeg, but not stopping here. You looking to get somewhere important?”

With a humorless chuckle that shakes his shoulders, the boy mutters, “None of your fucking business,” and Yifan clicks his tongue beside him.

“Don’t be rude to our new guests,” he chastises the boy, and earns a roll of the eyes and two crossed arms in return. “Sorry, we’re actually - ”

_Slap._ Yifan exhales through a groan and nurses his sore, reddening cheek with a gentle hand. “Don’t _tell_ them!” Zitao yells through gritted teeth, eyes wild and skin pallid. “They’ll fucking stalk us and take all of our shit when we’re not looking, were you born _yesterday_?”

“If I may,” Chanyeol offers in order to sweeten the pot. “Baekhyun and I have no intentions to rob you, but quite the contrary, we’d actually love to help you if you’d be interested in having two extra sets of hands on your side. We move around a lot, and we don’t really have much to do with our own lives at this point in time, so it actually sounds pretty fun to help you guys explore new cities if you’d like. You know, think about it on your own time. I understand, we’re hunters and we aren’t to be trusted, I get it, but we do have supplies and extra food. You’d always have a meal and people to guard you when you sleep.”

Then, the boy sighs and glances over in a glare as he says, “Don’t need it.”

However, the deal doesn’t seem too shabby to Yifan. _Safety in numbers_ is their number-one priority, and while Zitao may adore kissing his own ass and telling himself that being alone is the best way to live in this kind of world, Yifan knows how good it feels to have somebody watching out for you and sticking their neck out to save your back when you need it. He only hopes Zitao will come to see it one day, sooner or later, be it in writing or in blood. “Sorry,” Yifan whispers to the hunter. “We’re - still strangers.”

“That’s okay,” the hunter tells them in a smooth voice. “Like I said, you can think about it, but perhaps we could try to gain your trust by escorting you out of the city, at least?”

Being a duo where he is forced to make decisions with a second opinion, Yifan looks over at the boy to get his opinion, and is less than impressed when he notices that Zitao has turned his head away to physically disconnect himself from the conversation, and he sighs in ambiguity. Albeit stubborn, Zitao does have a knack for prioritizing safety over body count, and he having worlds more physical experience with infected and hunters than Yifan himself has, the boy seems like the one person to take advice from if Yifan had to choose whom to ask. Which is why when the boy’s shoulders slump and he hums out a low, “Let’s get something straight,” it takes Yifan by surprise, and he can’t help but wonder if the boy is growing tired again, since he only ever seems to become just a smidgen more human when he’s sleepy. “I don’t rely on others, I don’t ask for help, and I _don’t_ do teamwork. If you want to follow me, go ahead, but you lay one finger on me or my belongings and I’ll slice it off down to your wrist.”

“I assumed,” the hunter says with a laugh, “seeing how much you like to beat him up just because he talks.”

“He’s a freeloader,” the boy frowns. “Never respects anybody’s personal space and is probably plotting to kill me one day. And for _your_ information - I don’t trust anybody, and I will never trust you. I’m going about my business alone, and all the three of you are to me, are shadows, so if you follow me - ” he states apathetically, and pauses as his thoughts begin to jumble, “ - then your fate is on you.”

However, the hunter’s lips curl up at the edges as he begins to speak, “That’s quite alright, but it is always helpful to have someone to watch your back. So, let’s put our words into play, then.” With swift movements, the hunter stands and readjusts his helmet on his head, sliding the partition halfway down. Yifan follows suit nervously, jerkily adjusting his backpack over his shoulders and sliding his bow from its latch, shimmying a half-step into the hunter’s protective space.

As if on cue, then, the forgotten hunter shuffles through the door with whispery steps and a quiet, “What’d I miss?”

When Baekhyun steps over and kisses the other hunter on the lips, Zitao rolls his eyes and stands himself up on his own, sliding his knife back into his belt and slinging his bag over his shoulders. _Get a room._

“We’re taking them to the east side,” Chanyeol tells him, and the shorter hunter’s mouth falls open in understanding when he makes haste to take nimble strides and collect his belongings, raising the strap of his assault gun over himself. “Across town to the bridge and then down the highway to Paradise Village.”

“Sounds good,” Baekhyun agrees. “Did you all want to stop by our hideout for some supplies, or?”

“No,” Chanyeol interjects briskly. “Not right now. We’ll discuss it later. Let’s get going before any infected show up, yeah?”

With the hunters and a peachy-cheeked Yifan in lead and Zitao unhappily in tow, they raid the rest of the upper floors before heading back down and exiting the hospital through the same rusted-hinged door.

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“ ** _Shit_** _!_ ”

Baekhyun yelps when the tug of infected hands grasps onto his calf as he struggles to hoist himself up onto the sloped railing, Yifan’s calloused hands making attempt to pull him up onto the staircase. With a scoped shot, the infected shrieks and gurgles as blood spurts from its head and its body tumbles haphazardly from the railing. Yifan successfully hoists him over the railing with hands on the hunter’s waist, and glances back as Zitao nonchalantly shoves another magazine into the butt of his gun. When the other hunter ducks back around the corner of the door with blood on his uniform, he presses a hand to his chest and heaves out a breath. “That was too fuckin’ close,” Chanyeol expresses. “Thank you guys, I didn’t think we’d get ambushed like that.”

“Then learn to expect it,” Zitao tells them monotonously. “The entire world is dying, expect death at every turn.”

Still panting, Yifan turns his attention to the shorter hunter and says, “You weren’t bitten, right?”

“No, I’m fine,” Baekhyun tells him with short, clipped breaths. “You?”

“I’m clean,” he nods. “Do you need to disinfect?”

The hunter gives himself a quick look-over, noticing a small streak of darkly-pigmented blood across the surface of his kevlar vest, too dark and too viscous to be his own. “I think I’m alright,” he tells the man. “Thank you, though.”

Nodding, Yifan slackens his bow and turns over his shoulder to the teenager. “You okay, Tao?”

The look he gets in return is none short of unamused and flat, and Yifan feels like he’d said something inappropriate. “When am I not?”

Ah. “Right,” he says. “Sorry.”

Baekhyun leads the way onto higher ground, instructing them to climb the building-side ladder up from the balcony, and when they insist he goes first, he climbs in heed and swings his legs over the lip of the edge of the flattened roof. “Careful up here!” He proclaims as he teeters in his spot just a bit. “The floor’s caved in in some spots. I don’t know how well it’ll hold.”

He helps his husband up over the ledge after him, and Zitao is quick to fill in space by throwing a leg up and over and rolling himself onto the roof. Underneath the greyed sky, Zitao soaks up the cool moisture in the air and the scent of ozone and distant petrichor. “It’s going to rain soon,” he says with lidded eyes, the breeze tousling his dark hair and combing it away from his face. 

“Yeah, we should get inside pretty soon,” Chanyeol comments before gesturing with the bar of his gun. “Come on, this way.”

As he leads Zitao to a fire escape trap-door that folds down into emergency stairs, Baekhyun’s expression begins to tighten. “Wait - where’s Yifan?”

The men stop where they’ve been trying to kick the lock in with the heel of Zitao’s foot and the butt of the hunter’s gun, and Baekhyun’s face falls as a slightly-distant voice says, “ _Guys!_ ”

“Shit,” he swears, running back over to the laddered ledge, and when he peers over past the edge, he notices Yifan standing idly by with his bow in his hands and sadness painted across his features, looking much too akin to a toddler about to cry. “Nobody grabbed him?”

“You guys forgot to help me up,” he pouts as he releases his bowstring and slides it back under his shoulder, and catches the ladder as the hunter slides the pick out of the latch and pushes the rungs downward. 

“Sorry,” Baekhyun tells him with a pitiful expression as he kneels down, chest pressed to the ledge, and hangs his arms down for Yifan to climb his way up and grasp onto his hands. “Tao was supposed to help you up. Here, come on, I got you.”

From behind, however, the hunter can hear a _tisk_ and has to force himself not to respond when the aforementioned teenager cuts the silence with, “You could’ve left him down there, you know.”

Pulling Yifan up, the hunter helps him gain his footing on the disintegrating roof as the man struggles to force his weight over the edge, but when he does, it causes Baekhyun to fall back slightly, and Yifan feels sorrowful and guilty that their weight distribution differs so. “We leave no man behind,” he hears Chanyeol say, presumably to Zitao. “You might, but we don’t. We need everyone alive if we can help it. Now come on, let’s get inside before it pours.”

Zitao doesn’t speak to him as they descend the metalled staircase into the building and find themselves in a dilapidated, long-since-abandoned apartment complex, judging by how each and every door looks like it’s been ripped from its hinges and the frames have begun to rot. Yifan can’t help but mope to himself as he recalls and imagines what it would be like to be forgotten, to not matter. He recalls how scared he’d been and how alone he’d felt; his own voice had been unable to rise up to call out for help and remind everybody that he existed. Then there was the creeping feel of regret - of feeling burdensome, like Zitao had been carefree all along about wishing he could find opportunities to leave the man behind. Even when he’d stormed away from him last week and had taken off across town, Yifan had the physical capability and the know-how to follow him. Being left behind on a fire escape balcony leaves him less than knowledgeable about his whereabouts, and plenty certain that he will be left behind. 

The apartment the hunters choose to lead them into is one on the far right in the deep of one of the wings, likely out of precaution so they won’t be found by anyone, and when they enter, Yifan is immediately overcome with the scent of mildew and unwashed upholstery. “I don’t think anybody’s lived here since I was born,” he says absentmindedly, and Chanyeol cracks out a little laugh in the front of the line.

“How old are you again?” The hunter asks, and when Yifan replies _twenty-six_ , he says, “Oh, you look good for twenty-six. What’s your secret?”

“ _Yeol_ ,” his husband stresses in embarrassment, and the added laughter makes Yifan’s lips curl in a smile. 

“I don’t really know,” Yifan admits happily. “Lots of smiling, I guess?”

“Smiling gives you wrinkles,” Zitao remarks snidely as he strides past them toward the kitchen, and begins reaching out to rifle through the cabinets and pull-out drawers. “Explains why you’re so ugly.”

“Be nice, you two,” the shorter hunter tells them as he heads into the bathroom in search of anything of use. “Play fair.”

Zitao manages to find a pair of scissors in the drawer next to the refrigerator and can’t help but be shocked when he stumbles across a bag of old rice. “I found our dinner,” he says aloud, and his acquaintances shuffle around to see what he’s found. “Hope you all like stale rice.”

“Ah, that’s perfect!” Baekhyun smiles. “I’ll go ahead and get a fire going in the pit in the living room.”

“I don’t have any water,” he lies, but the hunter simply waves him off and shucks his backpack onto the slightly-torn sofa. 

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I have some.”

While the hunter sets up a pot with handfuls of the white grains and what Zitao feels safe assuming is most of a full canteen of water, which also looks mysteriously military-grade with its matte speckled surface that he safely assumes is made of a kevlar-polyester blend rather than plastic as to not soak up toxins - _plastic is porous_ , Evelyn had once told him, _so you can boil the infection out of the water that you put into a plastic container, but some people might still feel strange about it regardless even after boiling_ \- and the apartment falls into silence as he packs his found materials away into his backpack and zips it back up to continue exploring the rest of the home. 

He wanders into one of the rooms down a small hallway and upon entering, fairytale-papered walls and white-painted furniture, and notices Yifan rifling timidly through a chest of drawers which he assumes once held somebody’s clothing, and crosses his arms as he leans against the doorframe. “You find anything?” He asks, and Yifan glances up at him with surprised eyes, as if he hadn’t been expecting to be walked in on, but his posture does not falter nor does he attempt to conceal anything he’s found.

“Not much,” the man tells him with another gentle grin, stereotypically sweet and simultaneously sickening, and Zitao rolls his eyes. “Just some… old clothes.”

Curiously, the boy leans forward a tad to peek over the edge of the chest to see just what the man has found, but when Yifan procures one of the garments and holds it up, he falls silent. 

It’s a tiny onesie - pink and polka-dotted in white and frilled with periwinkle and lilac tulle, and when Yifan flips it just slightly, Zitao sneaks a glimpse of the words _daddy’s little princess_ illustrated on the breast. “Someone had a baby I’m guessing,” he says dumbly, softly, and just barely catches the falter in Yifan’s expression, the bob in his throat and the shine in his eyes. 

“A baby girl,” the man comments quietly, voice marginally hoarse, and he lets out a long, shuddering breath and bites down on his lower lip. “That… she - ”

“She didn’t make it,” Zitao finishes for him in a low tone. “Babies don’t usually… unless they take them to Sacro to keep them safe, but even then they’re… if they're hungries, they're put down during testing.”

The man doesn’t respond, instead opts to set the onesie back down into the drawer and his eye catches something on the vanity top - a stuffed ladybug with a slight rattle to it, and when he gives it a careful squeeze with his thumb in its center, it emits a high-pitched squeak. “This was hers,” he whispers. “I wonder how much she got to play with it.”

“Probably a good amount, I’d think,” the boy says, a little bit irritated, and Yifan sets the toy back down on the vanity and turns to him with a teary-eyed, painful expression that makes Zitao’s chest bloom cold. “Hey - what’s the matter with you?”

When Yifan’s blurry gaze meets his own, Zitao feels for the first time like he’s looking into the hollow of somebody’s body, and the feeling makes him slightly queasy. “Nothing,” Yifan tells him, and Zitao knows it’s a lie. “She must have been a very good girl.”

Confused, the boy swallows. “Why are you talking like this?”

Yifan stalls answering, simply shying his eyes away and fiddling with his hands before raising one shoulder briefly in a half-hearted shrug, “No reason,” he opts for quietly, before forcing a smile on his face that Zitao can see right through. “You don’t have to worry about me, you know.”

“Who says I’m worried?” The boy grimaces and pushes himself off of the doorframe. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

The room settles in silence once more when Zitao leaves, and after a long moment of keeping careful watch, Yifan glances bittersweetly back at the toys on the vanity. 

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

  
“Hey guys, check out what I found!”

The crowd looks up from their meal of boiled rice and boiled water to see Chanyeol trudging in looking gratified as ever - a sleek, ecru-toned guitar in hand. 

“They have a guitar?” Baekhyun asks incredulously, standing from his seat to stride over and feel the instrument with his own two hands. “Whoa, it’s all scratched too! I wonder who used to use it.”

“Probably someone famous,” his husband says with a grandiose smile and steps around him to get to the loveseat and situate himself down with the instrument propped on his leg. “Tao - Yifan - did you guys know, that way back when I first met Baekhyun, I used to play guitar?”

Zitao groans with his mouth half-full, “This isn’t going to be a sob-story, is it?”

“Nope,” Chanyeol beams. “I learned how to play back in middle school, and _always_ heard that guitar and piano were two of the main romance instruments. Back then, I was young and naive, right? But I still enjoyed playing, so I taught myself how to play and I would practice every single day right after class, and I would practice and practice for hours on end, sometimes until I went to bed that night. Then after high school when we started dating, I used to play for him sometimes on our dates.”

“It was very romantic,” Baekhyun adds smartly, and Yifan can’t help but smile. 

“Though,” Chanyeol continues flippantly, “sometimes I _was_ a little out of tune or off-key, but I don’t think he ever minded because the sentiment was still there.”

The shorter hunter swallows his mouthful before wiping his lips briefly and saying, “The night he proposed to me, he played me an old song called _Cavatina_ , and I just fell so in love. Ah, good times they were.”

“Would you two like to hear me play it? Though fair warning, I’m probably a little rusty,” Chanyeol admits with a bashful blush.

Heart-warmed, however, Yifan slaps his hand down onto his knee and begins to vaguely signal with his hands as he swallows and says, “I want to hear it!”

The hunters smile in reprise before Baekhyun says, “Don’t let it make you fall in love, too, Yifan. He has his ways.”

Shyly, Yifan smiles and tucks his face towards his chest as he averts his eyes. Across the room on the loveseat, Chanyeol hoists his knee up just a little bit and splays his fingers across the strings, taut and reflective, before saying, “Alright, you ready?”

As they leave him with a bleat of silence, the man begins to play.

Notes flow delicately in swirls and hover around them smooth, lovely, concentrated fingers plucking the strings and experienced fingertips pressing along the frets at each shift in the notes. Yifan, as one who had been filled with anticipation all the way to his ears, feels curious and glances over at Zitao - and nearly can’t believe what he sees.

He doesn’t think he’s ever seen the boy look so _entranced_ before.

As the hunter’s fingers dance along the neck, Zitao’s body seems to struggle against the urge to sway, eyes somewhat hooded and lips slightly parted, engrossed and observant, and Yifan wonders with a sense of newfound curiosity if perhaps Zitao enjoys music. Be it that he may, Yifan knows he probably never really got to experience much music and probably never developed a favorite genre either - would he like classical, like that of the soul from within Chanyeol’s fingertips, or would he like something more rugged such as hip-hop or urban rhythm and blues? Yifan can’t help but imagine the possibilities.

Rather shortly - unfortunately, Yifan might add - the song ends, and he finds himself clapping on autopilot, a kneejerk reaction to having good manners. “Thank you, thank you,” Chanyeol congratulates himself with dramatic flips of his dominant playing hand. “I hope it didn’t make your ears bleed.”

“It was beautiful,” Yifan admits wholesomely, and the hunters gaze at him with plentiful admiration. 

“I tried singing before, too,” the man continues as he lifts the instrument from his lap and leans over to set it aside against the arm of the sofa, propped up carefully as to not drop it and damage it further, “but I stopped in high school once I realized it wasn’t my strongest feat.”

Inhaling, nervous, Yifan admits, “I used to sing,” and when all eyes in the room turn to him, he quickly adds, “but I always wanted to learn guitar, too.”

“No kidding,” Baekhyun says in awe. “You sing?”

He fidgets in his seat and peripherally picks up movement to his side, and when he glances over, he notices Zitao crossing his arms and rolling his eyes so far into the back of his head, Yifan wonders if he’s actually passing out for a moment. When the boy’s body rolls through an elongated sigh, he settles with the knowledge that Zitao just couldn’t care less. “Not a lot,” he admits sheepishly. “I don’t anymore because barely anybody really liked it.”

There’s a snicker off to his side, and he has to resist the urge to look over before he hears the boy tell him, “Probably because your voice is too ugly for anyone to like it.”

“Tao,” Baekhyun scolds. “Don’t be so mean. I’m sure your voice is beautiful, Yifan. You should sing something for us.”

“Even so,” he continues, pouting, “I was never that good at it.”

Then, Chanyeol throws one leg over the other and gestures to him with a hand before saying, “Hey, I was never that great at guitar either, but practice makes perfect, yeah? Maybe all you need is some practice.”

As touching as the support is, Yifan continues to shy away and be offhanded. “Maybe another day,” he says, and Baekhyun groans as he falls dramatically into the couch cushion. 

Yifan takes the kind initiative to clean up everybody’s dishes and place them in the kitchen basin, long since rusted and in some spots, eroded away completely. The hunters help him briefly, cleaning up the pot inside the fireplace and replacing the water for drinking. What bothers him still is how idle Zitao is being, and although he knows it’s bad manners to not help guests, he wonders if something is on his mind. Nevertheless, he gets the feeling that it probably wouldn’t be a great idea to ask him about it.

Then the shorter hunter makes his way back to the sofa where the boy is sitting, places his hands on his hips, and says, “Have you ever played any instruments, Tao?”

Brusquely, the boy cuts his eye and glances up at him with crossed arms and a bitter expression, “No, why would I have? There’s no point when we’re all going to die eventually.”

“Well that’s not a great way to see it,” the hunter pouts. “You should enjoy life while you can. Go out, learn something, meet someone.”

Zitao tisks once more before looking off to the side of the room at the crystalline glimmer of the rain against the glass windows. What point is there, he wonders? Humans are so quick to preach about the importance of life, yet are so quick to kill those like him for something that is out of his control. He knows all too well that they’d try to put one right between his eyes if they knew what he was. “I don’t want to,” he responds quietly. 

“Are you sure?” The hunter asks him, and Zitao sits upright with a forced expression, just as sure as he’s ever been. “I mean, you seemed like you really enjoyed Chanyeol’s playing, so I thought - maybe you were curious about how to play, and I mean, we’d be willing to teach you - ”

“I didn’t enjoy anything,” he states, standing from his seat, “and I wasn’t curious about anything, either. Understand? Stop this gross overanalysis of me, and mind your own business.”

The boy storms away from him and heads down the hall into one of the back rooms and the hunter struggles in thought to find words as he returns to the kitchen where Yifan and his husband reside. 

At this point in time, there is not much cleaning-up to do left, as Yifan has himself already wrist-deep in washing the dishes with the disinfected water, barely even sorrowful on the surface without the assistance of soap, and the hunter can’t help thinking about what an extraordinary patience threshold the man seems to have with someone like Zitao - so prickly and abrasive, and yet Yifan never seems to bat an eye. He wonders - are they perhaps, if surreptitiously… in love? “Yifan,” he says aloud, right in the shadows of the man, and watches as his shoulders jerk in surprise when he glances back.

“Oh,” Yifan says with an awkward half-grin, “you scared me. Is everything okay?”

“Hm,” he nods, perplexed, and wonders if Yifan can see it on his face when he asks, “Can I ask you a question?”

Yifan’s hands still in the lukewarm water. “Of course you can.”

The hunter rolls through every controversial emotion he has in his capacity, occasionally looking over to the hallway as if afraid someone might walk in before he finally manages to say, “What is it about Tao?”

He blinks, mind blurring. “What do you mean?” He asks, unsure of where the context of this conversation is headed. Is he asking about why Zitao acts the way he does, or is he asking about why Yifan follows him through the violence and the insults? He’s not very sure which it is. 

“I mean,” the hunter stammers, “why is Tao always so… _cold_ , I guess?”

Truthfully, Yifan knows there are aspects of Zitao’s past and his present and his future that he will never tell anybody, and that’s okay. Yifan knows there are things Zitao has been through that he is not obligated to tell anybody if it makes him too uncomfortable to do so, and that’s okay, too. Yifan is malleable, and he knows better than to expect too much of Zitao at any given time because the boy hasn’t even turned sixteen yet and for all Yifan knows, probably has nightmares about all of the people he’s killed. He wonders how many he’s gotten rid of, screaming and begging for their lives, or how many infected have bled out onto him or have attempted to sink their rotting bicuspids into his flesh. For how kept to himself the boy is, Yifan knows that he is not somebody to look into as though through a mirror, and they are not matters that should be pressed further. “That’s just who he is,” he shrugs, turning back to the dishes. “It’s not something he likes to talk about.”

Oh. “Forgive me, then,” Baekhyun apologizes. “I didn’t mean to interrogate.”

“It’s fine. He doesn’t like to be asked about himself, is all,” Yifan tells him with pressed lips, and sets his rag back down as he turns on his heel and faces the hunter, whose cheeks have flushed likely in embarrassment. “I don’t know much about him, but he probably never had a real chance to learn how to actually act since all he’s ever done is kill and hunt.”

“You said he’s fifteen, right? Poor lad, so terribly young to be exposed to this amount of brutality.”

“He’s extremely smart for fifteen, you know,” he says with a smirk. “I’ve never seen someone so intelligent and so sneaky. He’s taught me things, too. He taught me how to make and use a bow and arrow, he taught me how to hunt. He even taught me how to kill infected for the first time.”

The hunter blinks. “You’ve never killed before?”

Yifan signals to scoot past him, and the hunter presses himself back into the countertop to let the man through when Yifan says, “I’m a pacifist,” and the hunter can’t predict the shock that overcomes him, “so I’d never actually killed anybody with my own hands before.”

“Tao seems to be very capable of taking care of himself,” he adds absentmindedly. “Is that why he seems to hate you so much?”

“Yeah,” Yifan smiles, beginning to stack the dishes and set them off to the side. “I can be pretty bothersome to him, but he’s not so bad when you really get to see him for who he is.”

Baekhyun ponders over what that means, and leaves Yifan to his own devices. He wonders if it’d be a good idea to apologize to Zitao, but at the same time, he worries that the boy will not accept it and it will be a fruitless effort. Then again, are any efforts necessarily fruitless? It’s the thought that counts, right?

When he glances back toward the den, he notices Chanyeol setting up a bedroll for himself and attempting to coax Zitao into claiming it for the night, but the boy shakes his head before reaching into his own backpack and procuring an expansive, charcoal-grey blanket, and laying it down in front of the fireplace. Ever the gentleman, his husband seems entirely unphased by the boy’s selfishness, but Baekhyun knows him better than anyone else, and knows it takes the man a lot to show that anything bothers him.

Yifan sleeps within several feet of the boy, maintaining a solid distance as Zitao curls himself into his blanket and tosses around, yet still within arm-length should he need to grab him for any reason, and Baekhyun takes it as a sign that it’d be a good idea to leave them alone and not question their behaviour any further.

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

Zitao finds it very difficult to fall asleep.

As the thick of the rain pours down on the grated roof, he finds him uncomfortable and slightly unsettled, thoughts racing, and wholly despises how it makes him feel.

While everyone is comfortable and settled and silently snoring away, Zitao sighs under his breath and wraps the blanket tighter around himself, and curls toward the heat of the fireplace. How can one man be so stupid as to welcome fucking _hunters_ by his side without even a second thought? God, Zitao knew Yifan was daft but he never knew he could be this fucking _brainless._

_How could he do this to me? Who the fuck told him he was smart enough to make decisions on his own?_

And that look on his face back in the nursery - Zitao hadn’t been able to forget it no matter how hard he tried. What had gotten into him for him to look like that? 

_This was hers, I wonder how much she got to play with it. She must have been a very good girl._

What did he mean by that? Is Yifan hiding something from him? Though Zitao knows he has every right to since Zitao himself has absolutely no plans to tell Yifan a goddamn thing about his own life because it’s not Yifan’s right to know, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t wonder.

_Fuck this_ , he thinks to himself. _And fuck these stupid humans and their stupid paternal instincts._

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“There’s a town all the way down the street, about two miles from here, and that’s where we drop you two off.”

It’s a little warm today, so the hunters have foregone their heavy Kevlar sheened armoring and settled on blue-toned cotton shirts and bloodied trousers that look years old, and Yifan was surprised how ordinary and folksy they appear. 

Zitao, however, who has been very timid and silent lately, adjusts the straps of his bag upon his shoulders as he trudges along the pavement, the air quiet and stifling, and speaks up to say, “Paradise Village, you said?”

“Yep!” Chanyeol chirps in the front of the line. “It’s not as big of a city as Winnipeg, though, but it’ll get you away from town lines. It’s also not under any type of militia watch, so you shouldn’t have any issues with being out in the open. Well, I mean, other than anybody crawling around.”

“They don’t scare me,” the boy responds with disinterest. “Nothing but soulless fuckers trying to take your blood and supplies.”

Ahead, when Yifan reaches back to untie his hair and comb it through with his fingers, stringy and dark, Zitao watches him lift the strands that have fallen to the bottom of his collar, and skillfully tugs them up and pulls them taut against his head. When he secures it again with the rubber band and combs the flyaways back behind his ears with long fingers, the boy forces himself to tear his eyes away. 

“Does your hair ever get annoying, Yifan?” The shorter hunter asks, and Zitao is brought back to reality. “It looks pretty long. Has it been a while since you’ve cut it?”

The man stops fiddling with his messy black hair and gives them a crooked smirk. “I haven’t had it cut since my base was raided.”

“Holy shit,” Chanyeol turns his head and laughs, craning his neck back to get a good look at the guy. “You do look good with it, though, but it seems like a hassle when you can’t wash it often. It’s a shame the rivers are infected, too, or else we could all go for a group shower.”

“No thanks,” Zitao grunts. “I’ll pass.”

“It’d be great to cut it, honestly, but I’m really no good with that kind of thing, and I can’t really see behind myself,” Yifan chuckles. “Otherwise I would, but I’d probably really screw it up.”

The hunters on the front line stop walking and turn to face him, and Yifan’s face blanks as he stills abruptly, unsure of what is happening. “Why are we stopping?” Zitao asks impatiently, flatly, and Yifan gives him a small shrug. 

They aren’t left wondering for long, however, when Baekhyun rolls his shoulder and catches his rucksack as it falls into his hands. He grabs the carrying handle and gives the bag a little shake as he says, “I’ve got some scissors if you’d like me to do it for you.”

Incredulously, Yifan asks, “You can cut hair?”

“Sure,” Baekhyun tells him. “I was a hairdresser at the Victoria base when I wasn’t out saving lives on the front line. There were a lot of people with a lot of hair, so someone had to do it. One day I volunteered, and got lots and lots of practice on hundreds of men and thousands of women.”

“He’s _really_ good,” Chanyeol whispers to him against the barrier of his palm, “trust me.”

As if on instinct, Yifan looks over at Zitao for advice on what to do, but the boy has his nose turned up, disinterested, and Yifan knows he’s more than likely not going to be a willing volunteer on seeing if the hunters are to be ultimately trusted or not. So, with gusto, Yifan decides for himself. “Okay.”

“Really?” The brown-haired hunter gleams at him in pride, excited as he fusses with the zipper on his bag. “You’ll like it, I promise!”

As promised, Baekhyun has him sit down in the middle of the idle road - _on your bag works, if you’d like, that way it’s more comfortable than the street_ \- and guides him professionally through everything that he does. When he unties Yifan’s hair, he warns him about the tug of the rubber. When he soaks the strands in a little bit of water on a rag, he warns him about the chill of the dampness, and when he begins to section it and ties the top half upward with the underside of his hair straight and loose, he lets him know he’s about to begin. 

Yifan knows he is not the most intelligent individual - he struggled his way through secondary school and only just made ends meet when it came to assisting the troops, but if there is one thing he is good at, it’s being an inherently great judge of character. He’d been a natural at nursing, it seemed because he seemed to hone in very well on feminine needs and anxieties. He’d been the one to alert the appointed leader of the base of incidents of treason, and had been the one to snuff out the humans who have been infected and try to hide it. He knows all of their tells - the conversational panic, the deflecting, the mood swings, the way they avoid physical touch if they had previously been consensual with physical touch. Having met Zitao, Yifan can safely and confidently say that he’s not been this confused about someone in a very long time.

Baekhyun, however - Yifan can feel literal waves of positivity radiating off of him at any given moment as if the guy is never bothered and is certainly never deceptive. There is no cloudiness in his eyes when Yifan looks into them, and there is no telltale body language to indicate that he was being secretive. Yifan has confidence in him when he allows him to bring a pair of scissors near the nape of his neck because Baekhyun feels genuine and easily readable.

“How did you used to wear your hair, Yifan?” The hunter asks behind him, and when Yifan cracks an eye open to respond, he sees that Chanyeol has sat down several feet in front of him while Zitao stands awkwardly beside him with crossed arms, like a shadow. Just behind his ears, Yifan can hear the soft snipping of the scissors and he wonders how much the man will take off.

“Well, I used to wear it kind of loose,” he explains as he closes his eyes again and sits still, “like, with the sides shaved down and the top somewhat long but not _too_ long. After a while, though, I lost my clippers, and my hair just started growing out unevenly. I also used to dye it sometimes.”

“Yeah?” Baekhyun asks softly behind him, fingers sliding against the short hairs on Yifan’s nape. “What colors?”

“More often than not something like a milky brown. Ah, there was one time where I tried to go blonde, but people back at the base laughed at it.”

“You should make it as ugly as possible so I never have to look at him again,” Zitao deadpans before him, and Yifan lets out a small chuckle where he sits. 

Separating Yifan’s hair tracks and starting to trim another, the hunter says, “Don’t be so prickly, you. You’d look good in blonde, too, Tao. It’s a shame I don’t have any hair bleach on me.”

“You’re not getting that shit anywhere _near_ my head,” the boy hisses, and the hunter laughs before returning to his work.

“I still don’t understand why people would steal hair dye and hair bleach for survival,” Chanyeol adds comedically. “Like, what is that going to do in protecting you against an unkillable bacterial virus? You dye your hair red, so what, do you secrete vaccine out of every pore now? _Whoa._ ”

“So, Yifan,” Baekhyun continues, “I’m going to safely assume that you started tying your hair back because of how limited your access to showering is, so I’m going to take off just a little bit more than you’re probably used to so that way you don’t need me cutting it again in just a few months. Sound good?”

“Sure,” he smiles and reminds himself not to nod because Baekhyun needs him to stay still.

The snipping of the scissors continues for what feels like several minutes, and Yifan finds himself drifting into a cozy middle ground between asleep and awake, where he can feel himself moving and can still hear sounds, but the rhythmic clicking of the scissors tries to lull him to sleep. 

Then there’s another tug at his hair, and he opens his eyes again. “Sorry,” the hunter tells him quickly. “Gotta section off some more.” 

Now that Yifan can spend some time with his mind quieted down, he begins to pick up things he perhaps wouldn’t notice when things were bustling and noisy, like how Zitao’s eyes rhythmically dart around the shape of his body and how when Yifan attempts any form of eye contact, he averts his own gaze and puffs out his lips in what is probably a scowl. Chanyeol is also rather quiet but is also quite chipper, consistently grinning as if it’s the most natural position for his lips to be in, and Yifan feels envious of how pure and wholesome their relationship truly is. Yifan would do anything to feel that kind of love one day. “Hey, Yifan,” Chanyeol speaks up, and Yifan peeks at him through a cracked eye. “How do you think your little Tao would look with a haircut?”

Aghast, the boy’s face falls and he immediately reaches for his artillery belt, but Chanyeol is quick on his feet with outstretched palms to coax him to calm down when the boy yells, “Who the fuck are you calling little?”

“Hey, hey, watch it with that thing!” The hunter cries out when Zitao wields his knife and slides out from its confines within the handle. 

Yifan purses his lips in thought before saying, “Well, Tao is a great partner to have around. Though,” the man continues with a snarky expression, “he would be quite the sight for sore eyes if he didn’t have his hair in his face all the time.”

The boy tisks, “Don’t be a kiss-ass. I don’t have a single reason to get rid of it because all it’s gonna do is make you stare at me more than you already do.”

“I could cut your hair, too, if you want,” Baekhyun offers, and characteristically rudely, Zitao cuts his eye away from him. “No? You wouldn’t want a nice haircut to go kick infected ass with?”

“I’m not letting you anywhere near my head with anything sharp,” Zitao deadpans. “You think I’m some kind of dumbass? You’ll slit my throat for all I know, and that’s not how I’m going to leave this world.”

“For the last time, we’re not planning to kill you,” the hunter laughs as he sections off another layer of Yifan’s hair to cut. “Don’t worry.”

Zitao rolls his eyes because he naturally worries; he knows better and he knows what hunters think about and how. He’s been there, he knows what goes through the mind of hunters. He knows what ulterior motives they hold, and nothing will get through him to show him otherwise. It’s been him against the world the entire length of his life, and he plans to keep it that way for his own good. 

“There,” Baekhyun says suddenly. “All done. What do you think, Tao?”

Knowing very well they don’t just carry around mirrors at convenience for Yifan to view himself, Zitao glances over - and struggles to conceal the tendrils of surprise roaming inside of him. What was once shoulder-length black, stringy, shapeless hair is now much shorter, front pieces curling slightly at the ends toward his eyebrows and over the cropped sides, skin just beginning to peek through, and Zitao really hates to say it but he looks… _decent_. “It’s ugly,” he lies, pressing his lips together. “You look like a fucking fourth grader. I don’t like it.”

The hunter’s face slackens in what appears to be disappointment, but Chanyeol is quick to fill in the silence with, “Don’t worry, Yifan, it looks really good, believe me! And I mean it, ‘cause if I was single, I’d probably date you looking like that.”

“Does it really?” Yifan asks, bashful and blushing. “I’ll take your word for it, but God, it feels good to not have it on my neck anymore.”

“Hey you,” Baekhyun chastises playfully, “did you find new eye candy right in front of me? I’m not polyamorous, you know.”

The taller hunter, however, grimaces and makes a sound of slight disgust, “What? I was joking. Besides, Yifan isn’t really my type. No offense, Yifan.”

A shrug. “None taken.”

When he stands from his makeshift seat, Baekhyun is making a barely half-assed attempt at sweeping black hairs off of himself and when Yifan looks down at the pavement below, he notices just how much has been taken from his head. “Whoa,” he says, “that looks like a lot.”

“I cropped the whole thing,” the hunter explains. “You’ve got about an inch all around, but I left the top long so you can have the overhang. Go on, feel it.”

Coerced, he lifts a hand and brushes it along the hairs on the back of his head, and smiles at how prickly and sharp they feel, freshly-cut and short for the first time in a long time. “Thank you so much,” he professes honestly. “Really, I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Don’t have to,” Baekhyun responds with a flippant shrug. “Alright, Tao, your turn.”

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“I said ** _unhand_** me, you _fuck_!!”

Being the helpful, trustworthy man he is, especially one of a height privilege of several inches, Yifan easily bends to gather the boy’s lower body in his arms and when he stands and straightens his legs, he effortlessly tosses the boy over his shoulder as though a grocery bag - except this grocery bag seems to enjoy pounding its fists down on his back in sharp beats. Yet immobile as he is, legs slung over the front of Yifan’s shoulder and torso free to dangle over the open air, Zitao is torn between reaching down for his knife and shoving it into the guy’s caudal vertebrae, and begging to get down out of fear of being dropped. Hanging upside-down like this is proving to be nauseating, the cloyingly sweet scent of flowers and wheatgrass having soaked into Yifan’s clothes not helping, and Zitao screams and kicks to be released as queasiness settles high in his gut. 

Then - the world spins and he realizes he’s being lowered, and it’s only when he feels something underneath his rear that he opens his eyes. He’s been sat on Yifan’s backpack, bulky and solid beneath him, and is being held in place with the man’s hands on each of his upper arms to immobilize him. “Get your filthy fucking hands off me,” he warns him with a clenched jaw, but Yifan just shakes his head and Zitao’s peripherals catch Baekhyun approaching him with the shears in hand. “No, get those things _away_ from me!”

“Stop, it’s okay,” Yifan coaxes as he winds his grip tighter, fingertips pressing into the boy’s clothed muscles, and it being the only time Yifan’s really been able to get a handful of him, he’s both surprised and simultaneously not at the strength beneath his skin. “He won’t hurt you, stop.”

Writhing in what restricted room he has, Zitao swings his fists out with little leverage and just barely misses the man’s face, before he presses his lips together and says, “I said let _**go**_!!”

The boy’s fingertips graze the plastic of his knife handle in his belt, struggling to reach it, before Yifan catches on and snatches his hands away, winding them behind his back and holding him there. Frustrated, Zitao lashes out in a swift kick that makes contact with Yifan’s shin, but when the man refuses to seeth in pain, he stands and presses the weight of his knee down onto the boy’s lap, stretched across his lower thighs, and Zitao accepts that he’s been rendered immobile. “Stop it, Tao, I mean it,” Yifan stresses in a stern voice. “All he wants to do is cut your hair, can’t you let him do that?”

And Zitao would - given that the hunters have paused their movements and watch him with bated gazes, though possibly out of shock because of his behavior - but Zitao knows they would wait just a few more moments if he made them.

Except that Yifan looks snarky all of a sudden, victorious in the way that he smirks and the way his eyes gleam, and Zitao refuses to let him win anything over him. Throat working, his lips purse for just a second before he spits on the man’s cheek, the glob of his saliva dripping slightly down to his jaw as the hunters collectively gasp, and when Yifan’s eyes crack open, the heat of them meeting his gaze, Zitao doesn’t hold back when he says, “Go _fuck_ yourself.”

Over his shoulder, Yifan makes out the sound of the hunter shuffling closer. “Let me help you, Yifan,” Chanyeol offers with an increasing tone, but Yifan stops him before he can, saying _don’t worry, I’ve got it_ , and the hunters sympathize for him. 

When he looks back at Zitao, he has to sigh and let his thoughts quell before he can speak, “Look, I know you don’t want it, but you might like it when it’s all said and done. Alright?”

However, the boy remains quiescent, the toughest nut to crack, and isn’t quite ready to crumble yet. “The only thing I look forward to liking is the moment you keel over dead, and I get to walk out of here with you out of my hair for good.”

“ _Tao_ ,” Chanyeol gasps, stunned - how could someone so young say something so barbaric?

“It’s okay,” Yifan promises him. “Trust me. Baek, come on.”

Alarm bells ring in his mind as the hunter comes closer and kneels behind him, and the boy chokes out a shriek and begins trying to yank out of the man’s hold. When he feels something stroking the hairs along his scalp, he growls and jerks away from the touch, teeth gnashing, before he feels his head being held still by another set of hands - _Chanyeol’s_ hands, he has to assume, because Baekhyun is wielding the shears and Yifan is straddling him full-bodied. 

He gives up struggling when he hears the first snip and lets himself go mostly lax, lets Yifan hold him in place, as he pants softly and shuts his eyes away from the world as his heartbeat begins to skip. He could do it at any second - angle those shears just right and shove them deep into his carotids, he has the perfect _trajectory_ to cut Zitao’s life short, and this whole situation has to be a conspiracy against him. 

However, the searing pain of his skin ripping open and the sting of his musculature shrieking at the lick of oxygen never comes as he feels his hairs being held, snipped, trimmed, and he braves it enough to peek his eyes open. Yifan’s lap is the first thing he sees, the dirtied seat of his pants and the folds of his shirt where it pools atop his waistband, and just in the corners, he can see another set of legs - the hunter’s legs, since he’s still got his hands behind Zitao’s temples - and wonders why they aren’t making any moves to kill him. Why aren’t they trying to snap his neck? Why aren’t they slicing his throat? 

Then - Baekhyun shifts behind him with the hissing of boots against concrete - and Zitao’s senses freeze as the scent of the hunter’s blood caves in on him at all corners. He had been keeping his distance for a reason, but now the hunter is so close that Zitao can _smell_ him, the hunger beginning to buzz underneath his skin as his blood starts to simmer, and he gags and attempts to shy away, lurching forward as much as he can against the hands holding him. He’s got to get away before the hunger overtakes him, before his hands shake too much, before he loses control of himself - so as a cry for help, he looks up at the man holding him and tugs at the restraint on his wrists.

Startled, Yifan looks down, and notices how blurry and glossed the boy’s eyes have become where he looks at him, almost _desperately_ , but no, there’s no way Zitao would be looking at him with desperation in his gaze. Nevertheless, he naturally feels concern and can’t help but ask, “What’s wrong?”

Zitao chokes again, noisily, and the hands on his head fall away. How can he tell them without blowing his cover? If he tells them that he can smell the hunter behind him, they’ll find out and there isn’t a string of doubt in his mind they’ll try to kill him, and with him as unguarded and restrained as he is now, Zitao doesn’t find it an ideal situation to be in. “I - ” he stammers, gasping. The scent is stronger now, warm with worry and slightly saltier, the pungent earthiness of embarrassment clouding the tinniness. “I want to stop,” he blurts out, and the snipping stops. “I don’t want it anymore.”

“But I’ve already started,” the hunter behind him says in a small voice. “I couldn’t possibly stop now, it’ll look uneven.”

“Let’s just stop,” Yifan tells the hunter. “I don’t want to force him when it’s clear he’s frightened, yeah?”

The hunter sullenly moves away, standing from his spot and returning to his husband and his own belongings, and Zitao gasps as the air moves away from him and he begins to become encased in the floral scent of the repellant once more, as Yifan comes closer and releases his hands to rub comfortingly up his arms.

“Just stay calm,” Yifan mumbles to him. “I’ve got you.”

It’s entirely unlike Zitao to act this way - something must have happened to make him so uncharacteristically nervous, Yifan knows, and while he cannot expect Zitao to tell him what is on his mind, but he cannot help but worry that something is the matter.

However, when whatever had its hold over the boy seems to finally relinquish its grasp, Ziao is shoving him away once again and standing up with a, “I told you not to fucking touch me,” before the boy turns his back and grabs his backpack, and demands they resume their trek.

Yifan sighs. He’d thought he was making some progress with Zitao’s real personality, for a second.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” The hunters ask him, but Zitao doesn’t respond, and when they give the bowman questioning looks, he promises them that it’s very normal behavior for the kid and to let him cool down a little bit before talking to him again. 

_You two are honestly the cutest_ , the shorter hunter tells him when Zitao is out of earshot. _You’re so understanding and patient with him, I’m amazed._

Yifan can’t even pretend his insides don’t melt at the compliment, and while the hunters guide them into a moss-licked, grassy section of the highway overgrown with foliage and crawling with infected and bits of torn body parts and puddles of blood indicative of a recent battle, Zitao wordlessly takes care of it mostly on his own with just a little bit of assistance from Yifan’s arrows. 

_Well_ , he thinks to himself as he steps around what looks like a human arm, overgrown with maggots and blood having long curdled and turned dark, _maybe I’ll be able to get it out of him another day._

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“We used to help people pretty often,” Baekhyun tells them as they push past trees and yards of leafy overhang, canopies of green shrouding the forest floor in comfortable darkness as the sun begins to sink behind the clouds and the rays disappear. “The way we helped you two, I mean. Men, women, children. We’d take them on board and escort them travel-side. We eventually stopped because we were actually held captive once and they ambushed us and robbed us.”

“Holy shit,” Yifan’s face falls. “You’re not serious.”

Beside them, a twig snaps as Zitao walks over broken branches and uprooted vining. “Unfortunately, that’s what people do. They hunt each other to survive. Selfish fuckers.”

“Well, everybody steals, but we try to stick to stealing from dead bodies only,” Chanyeol laughs and turns his head to look at them, “but unfortunately we’re not kidding. We escorted this couple once, a man and a woman, and they were trying to get from the city and escape to Lake Manitoba. Said they had a group they were meeting up with up there but just didn’t know how to get there, so we helped them. Shared some food with them, gave them some old clothes. Then when we’d reached the lake, their group ambushed us and took us captive, had us tied up and all that. Raided our bags and took all of the food we had in them, and tried to take our weapons, as well.”

“What happened, then?” Yifan asks out of curiosity. “I mean, you’re still stood here today. Something good must have happened because they didn’t get the chance to kill you.”

“Well, what people sometimes fall short with is remembering that concealed carry exists,” Baekhyun explains as they climb over rows of tall, curled roots having long since burst from the surface of the earth. “So when they tied us up, they forgot to strip us, and I keep a switchblade strapped to my groin at all times. For emergencies only, you know?”

“It might sound wild to keep it somewhere like that, but in that moment, it proved to be extremely useful,” the taller hunter continues the story. I’d slipped my hand down when nobody was looking, and Baekhyun was wearing shorts that day because it was summer, so I’d just reached up his shorts leg for it and slid it from the band. Started slicing at the rope, and by the time we got out, we stole our bags back and actually had to take out the entire group. It was such a shame, but we did spare the children and the pregnant women.”

“Yeah, we’re not _completely_ heartless,” Baekhyun laughs. “I guess we did a good thing, though, because one of the men who led the camp was a hungry.”

Then - Zitao nearly misses a step and almost trips over one of the roots as his heart sinks. 

“A hungry?” Yifan asks, and Zitao’s blood runs cold.

“Yeah, you know,” Chanyeol stops where he’s walking and starts to gesture with his hands, “the ones that feed on humans to continue the cycle of the virus. They’re the reason everything has gone to shit in the first place.”

Yifan stops in place, as well, hands lingering on the straps of his bag as he blinks, mind wandering. “Oh. I never really knew much about hungries. I mean, I’ve heard about them, but I don’t think I ever knew one personally.”

Biting his lips, Zitao has to stifle an ironic laugh. _I don’t think I ever knew one personally_ \- what a joke it is, and just the fact that they speak so degradingly of hungries only reminds him how worthless and inhumane he is, and how much nobody will ever love him for him once they find out what he is just beneath the surface of his skin. 

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t recommend you know one,” the tall hunter continues. “The one at the camp was an absolute monster; he had been feeding on the newborns and was just throwing their decaying carcasses to the wind and into the lake when he was done with them, and when the mothers would complain, he’d feed on them, too. One of the refugee women we freed told us all about it.”

The man’s eyes blink, “Does feeding on them kill them?”

“Hungries contain the inactive virus,” Zitao says without missing a beat, struggling to stay calm as he avoids eye contact. “When they feed on an unafflicted human, the human bleeds out and then is infected with the active virus and if they’re not already bled dry, they will turn.”

“Yeah, what Tao said,” Baekhyun tells him. “The only way you can kill a hungry and have it not turn is to sever the brain from the spinal cord like any other infected. So anyway, we saved their lives and took all of our stuff back and let the women and children live if they swore to let us walk away with everything we originally owned, and they were smart and said yes. So we came back to the city and haven’t helped random civilians like that since.”

Uncomfortable, Zitao begins to walk again, but not before Yifan speaks up by asking, “Then why did you decide to help us?”

As they pick up the pace again, Baekhyun falls silent for a few moments, seemingly lost in thought, before a smile creeps onto his lips and he faces the archer with twinkling eyes and says, “Because I could see right through you, and I could tell you were genuine in the case you presented to us, Yifan. I read you like a book.”

Yifan snorts, “Am I that transparent?”

“Yes,” Zitao is quick to answer. “You’re too nice, and people like them fall for shit like that.”

“And that’s why we almost shot you, too,” Chanyeol fills in for him. “It’s a popular hunter tactic to test if you were genuine or not, but since we’ve only ever been infected hunters, we’ve never had to use the tactic before we were ambushed at the lake.”

“Lucky for you, Yifan, your little partner seems to have the tactic down pat,” Baekhyun adds, and Zitao’s eyes narrow when his name is mentioned. _Just what is that supposed to mean?_

“Oh,” Yifan mutters softly as he glances over at the boy who has his eyes averted and his arms crossed once again, “it’s not a tactic with Tao, though. He’s really stabbed me before. Several times.”

“Have you really, Tao?” The taller hunter laughs, and Zitao rolls his eyes. “And how did getting stabbed feel, Yifan?”

“It fucking hurt.”

The boy sets his tongue in his cheek and steals a sideways glance at the man, curious what expression he’s making, “Good, maybe it’ll teach you to be less of a big-headed idiot.”

As they continue through the forest, the overhang begins to clear out and the obscurity begins to thin and illuminate with the growing sunlight, and when they peer curiously through the patches in the trees, fields as far as the eye can see stretch on toward the horizon, farmland long having since been cultivated, what is now messy bundles of dried berries and untrimmed hedging. “Oh, they look like farms,” Yifan comments negligently, absent as he dazes off toward the flatland. “Do you think anybody still lives there?”

“More than likely, no,” the shorter hunter tells him, “but there’s bound to be old farms there, and where there are old farms, there might be food. I think we should go check there, ‘cause Paradise Village is just up the road from here.”

The hunters wind them past what feels like miles but are probably mere meters of more farmland, and Zitao begins to feel strangely in the pit of his stomach. There’s an apprehension rising within him, as if he’s walking into a trap, as if he’s trespassing somewhere he shouldn’t be - but no, he doesn’t hear any whispering of the hungries, and he doesn’t smell any infected blood. What gives?

It isn’t until they’re winding a corner past a fork in the path that Zitao catches the slightest hint of what sounds like gurgling - or _croaking_ , maybe - and he stops in his place. “Wait,” he calls out in a tight voice, and the rest of the pack stills and turns to face him. Perplexed, Zitao waits, listening, feeling. It doesn’t sound immediately close but it is still very much _there_ , a noise he himself has never heard before but a noise which is too inhuman to be normal, and normal human sounds don’t fill him with trepidation and a need for escape. “Do you… hear that?”

Among the fear lies meekness, and Zitao feels the need for validation. Surely he can’t be the only one that hears the noise - the baritone churning, like a storm raging in the distance and streaking thunder across the skies, growing increasingly louder as if the sound is coming from within Zitao’s own mind and ears.

It becomes apparent, however, when their human faces transform into scowls of confusion and vacancy and the fear inside of him is only confirmed when his partner responds to him with, “Hear what?” Which makes it all the more concerning that Zitao seems to be the only one that can hear it.

“You really don’t hear that?” He repeats as the sound only grows behind his words. “That… fucking _gurgling_ sound.”

“A gurgling sound?” The shorter hunter asks, and Zitao sighs in frustration. “Wait, what kind of gurgling sound?”

Annoyed, the boy stomps a foot and grits his teeth, “I don’t know, it’s like - it sounds like fucking _thunder_ or something, but there’s not a cloud in the sky, and I didn’t hear it until we started walking by the farmlands.”

His words are not met again for a long beat of silence, as the hunters seem to stare at each other in thought, as if communicating telepathically with equal ideas, and Yifan being the simple idiot he is has resorted to peering through the trees out onto the flatlands to see if there is an approaching storm on the horizon, which Zitao knows very well there isn’t. If there was, they would be able to hear it, too. For him to be the only one hearing the sound means it’s not something human, and the thought truly scares him down to the core. What if they know?

After a moment, however, the shorter hunter tears his eyes away and slings his backpack off of his shoulder, dropping it to the ground and bending to unzip it and begin searching for something within it. “What is it?” Yifan asks, and the shorter hunter avoids his eyes for a long while, seemingly ignoring him. “Is everything okay?”

However, Baekhyun does not respond as he searches his bags, and it’s only when he procures a dirtied burlap sack filled with something - _multiple somethings_ \- that he stands and makes eye contact with them again. “I need you two to listen to me very carefully.”

The tone in his voice shoots right through Zitao and all of his suspicions have been confirmed - he is the only one that can sense whatever this thing is. “What’s wrong?” Yifan asks again, and Zitao has half a mind to tell him to shut the fuck up for one second over the sound of the churning.

Baekhyun only sighs, however, and sends his husband a look - possibly one out of worry or pity - before looking back at them. “If I’m right, we’re about to walk right into the outskirts of a seedling nest.”

“A _what_?” The boy asks softly.

This time, Chanyeol steps forward to speak, and it’s a little bit scary how the sarcastic edge of his expression has completely disappeared, and Zitao gets the feeling this isn’t something humorous. “You’ve never encountered seedlings, I’m guessing?”

Zitao sucks in a breath as Yifan frowns; what? “No, not that I know of.”

“You two need to do exactly as I say, alright?” The shorter hunter continues. “Do you two have gas masks?”

The partners nod, shucking off their individual bags and procuring their individual gas masks, and Zitao knows very well that if they are about to walk into a spore-rich area, he is certainly the last one of the group that would need a gas mask. Not trying to blow his cover, however, he slips it over his head and fastens the band in the back of his scalp. “Why is this necessary, if I may ask?” Yifan questions and the hunters finish putting on their respective masks, suddenly more frightening and looking more like flies, Zitao thinks.

Rather than answering immediately, however, the taller hunter waves them over with a calm hand and begins to spread the cracks in the foliage wide open for them to peer through, and when Zitao steps out into the warm sunlight on the open land, his pulse skips.

The churning has grown louder, now, as Zitao stares straight at the culprit of the noises - monstrous, towering masses of infection-growth, blackened and darkly-colored, that with his own eyes he can see pulse with each beat of the sounds, as if a deformed heartbeat. The masses look individual yet piled up, what he assumes are the _seedlings_ as the hunters coined them, leviathan in nature, and when Zitao peers closer with narrowed vision, he notices how much they resemble gossamer armoring, as though reptilian. “That’s them?” He asks, and Baekhyun makes an affirmative noise behind him.

“They’re the last step in the virus,” he responds quietly as they all step out from the shrouding of the shrubbery. “And whatever you do, don’t make any sudden moves. They see - ”

“ _Using vibrations_ ,” Zitao finishes quietly, remembering what Evelyn told him. The seedlings are those _monsters_ his parents used to talk about - and what his father used to compare him to.

“Exactly,” the hunter says. “They can’t hear you or see you, but they can feel you. You make one big move, and they chuck seed pods at you, which if those things land anywhere near you, you best pray to your lucky stars that you have a mask on you ‘cause they release one hell of a spore cloud, and if you inhale those things, forget it.”

“The spores are infectious, I’m guessing,” Yifan comments, and the taller hunter gives him a confirmative nod. 

“They’re the airborne form of the virus,” Zitao says flatly, eyes locked on the nest that spans close to what he would bet was half of a mile. “You can spend your whole mortal life avoiding bites and not touching water or any growth that might have come in contact with them, but you inhale even a single one, and you might as well kiss your life goodbye.”

“Oh shit.”

“Alright, we’re going over here,” the shorter hunter whispers. “Follow me.” Baekhyun guides them to the edge of the field and instructs them to take delicate, slow steps as to not trigger the seedlings to awaken, and every step Zitao takes toward the mass increases the volume of the noise, deafeningly quiet in the back of his mind. When they stop, Baekhyun faces them and says, “Alright, here’s what we’re gonna do, and I need you to listen to me and do what I say. The two of you are as good as dead if you head into that field because you can’t kill them.”

Confused, the boy’s face furrows. “What do you mean I can’t kill them?”

Taking a careful breath, the hunter tells him, “They can only be killed using fire, which neither of you has. _These_ ,” he reaches back behind himself and procures the burlap sack he’d taken out of his bag earlier, and gives it a comforting little shake, “are little explosives made of Chinese petrol and manufactured napalm. We call them _mèng_ shots, but English-speaking folks call ‘em dream shots.”

Zitao reaches out a curious hand and is rewarded with one of the explosives to hold and feel, simply a small capsule wrapped in what looks to be twine or dried tree roots, and Zitao is inclined to call bullshit when the taller hunter says, “They’ve taken out entire waves of infected, and just a handful of them will light up a whole field of seedlings. Plus, the fire helps to kill the spores that the seed pods release when they burst.”

He stands with the explosive in hand and catches Yifan wielding his bow in his peripherals, and resists the urge to laugh when Baekhyun quietly says, “Put it away, you won’t be able to penetrate their skin.”

“Is it too hard?” Yifan asks, and among the chatter, Zitao gets an idea.

“It’s like armoring,” Chanyeol explains as he digs into his own sack of explosives. “They’ve been infected for so long that their skin has scabbed over and shrouds their facial features, which is why they can’t hear or see. They’re just like big piles of hard skin and infected growth.”

Yifan nods in understanding, inexperienced and timid, and starts to understand why Zitao always said he would die without him. Knowing himself, he would probably run away from things that looked as ugly as seedlings do and would attract all of them with his footsteps. He never even owned a gas mask before he met Zitao.

Speaking of Zitao - “Guys, where’s Tao?”

Startled, the hunters look around in panic, and Yifan’s heart drops as he realizes Zitao is nowhere to be found. “Where the fuck did that kid go?” Chanyeol swears under his breath, and Yifan’s eyes notice something that hadn’t been a certain way just a moment ago.

“Yeol,” he says, “where’s your bag?”

The hunter cautiously feels around on his backside, realizing his backpack is nowhere to be found, and when he remembers that he had taken it off to take the explosives out of the main compartment, he glances over to the spot where he’d laid it down - but the bag is nowhere to be seen. “Oh, fuck _me_ ,” the hunter hisses. “Don’t tell me Tao took it. _You,_ ” he looks at Yifan. “Does your kid do this kind of shit often?”

“Kind of, but - ” he stammers, looking around for any sign of the boy but finding none, “I didn’t think he would do it in this situation.”

“Fuck,” Chanyeol groans. “He took my explosives and my fuckin’ flamethrower, too.”

“What does that mean?” Yifan asks, but his words are cut abruptly short at the sound of a loud _bang_ , and when they look over, the seedlings all begin to roar and stand from their hibernation, masses of scabbed flesh the size of trees stomping toward a growing tower of flames, and there’s no doubt at all who the cause could be.

Irritated, the hunter shoots a fiery gaze at him and says, “It means he’s gonna get himself killed trying to light this whole field up by himself.”

The man’s jaw drops; no, Zitao _wouldn’t_. Would he?

  
 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

Quick-footed, he hoists himself up and swings toward a higher branch, testing the sturdiness with the sole of his foot before swinging his leg over it and straddling it. Confidently, he scoots toward the front of the branch before it begins to taper off and digs around in the backpack, procuring more explosives. “Alright, you big fuckers. Let’s dance.”

Winding his arm back, he tosses one of the explosives with all of his might and watches in delight as it bursts on contact in an ear-splitting explosion, and the churning grows to a deafening volume as the seedlings roar and begin to charge toward the flames. Seed pods pop loudly like firecrackers as they explode from the heat and Zitao watches, amazed, as the spores rise like fog and simmer among the ozone. For something so life-threatening, Zitao can’t help but find it so defiantly incredible.

Out of the corner of his eye, then, he catches movement across the field - Yifan and the hunters waving their arms, shouting, calling out for him, trying to catch his attention and more than likely trying to tell him to come down from the tree. What’s it to them? Zitao knows what he’s doing, he’s not some damsel in distress. Aiming for the right side, he launches another explosive and curses under his breath as they begin to scream, as they begin to burn, and the charred, hardened flesh on their outsides glows from the inside out as though bark, the flames seeming to breathe with the pulsating of the sound. 

Then - “ _Tao! **Stop**!!_ ”

He whips his head around and nearly teeters from his perch and notices Yifan several feet below him, abridged where he stands with his bow and arrow in his hands, and the hunters aren’t very far behind where they tiptoe toward him. “Don’t tell me what to do,” he snaps. “I can do whatever I want.”

“Tao, I said _stop_!” Yifan shouts, and Zitao knows what the stricture of his voice means, knows what that tense thickness means - Yifan is _angry_ , and it shocks him a little bit by how uncharacteristic it is of someone who never stops smiling and would never hurt a fly. “You’re in a tree, which is flammable, and you’re playing with fire _literally_. You’re going to get yourself killed up there. Just, come down here and let Chanyeol take care of it.”

“No!” He cries out in anger. “I’m tired of letting people take care of my business for me, and I’m tired of people telling me what to do. I’ll take care of this _myself_.”

“Not with my fucking backpack, you’re not,” the tall hunter scolds him loudly and walks toward the tree. “Hand it over, Tao. You can have some of the explosives but that’s _my_ backpack.”

A smirk. “And if I say no?”

“Here’s how this is gonna play out,” the hunter says, and before Zitao can react, the hunter is snatching Yifan’s bow and arrow from the man’s hands and equipping it in his own, and Zitao watches as he lifts one of the explosives and removes a few inches of the twine, and wraps it around the arrowhead, successfully securing the shot to the tip of the arrow, “when you’re going to steal my belongings and put people that I care about in danger, you don’t get a second option.”

With one swift tug, the arrow flies and Zitao truly expects it to fly past him and pierce one of the seedlings and light them ablaze with the explosive - until it strikes the trunk of the tree and when the shot bursts, the wood splinters beneath him and cracks down the middle and begins to burn, and he lets out a frightened shriek. “ _What the fuck are you **doing**!?_ ”

“You give me back my bag,” Chanyeol snaps, “or I leave you up there. Pick one, Tao.”

As Zitao’s eyes water in panic, Yifan’s face falls as he realizes the severity of the situation, and in a burst of anger, he trudges forward and shoves the hunter with both hands on his chest, “What is the _matter_ with you? He’s a kid, you’ll _kill_ him!”

“If he’s smart, he’ll do what it takes to get down from there.”

The decision lies over mere seconds before the flames lick their way up the trunk of the tree and consume the rest, including the branch and himself. No, the hunter has to be _kidding_. There’s no way he’d actually help them escape the city unharmed and then let Zitao be burned alive, right? 

Concerned, he winds his hands tighter around the cloth of the bag as he says, “You’re lying.”

However, the hunter merely smirks and crosses his arms over his chest, “Am I? You’ve only got a couple of seconds to do the right thing and that’s the truth.”

As the heat around him increases, Zitao’s eyes begin to shine as he realizes how serious the man is - how can he really leave him here for dead all because of a stupid backpack? “You’re all fucking _crazy_!” He tells them as he glances around in panic, and notices that the seedlings that haven’t burned to the ground stand from their spots and roar into the resonant air, and the churning behind his ears intensifies massively. “ _Fine_! You want it so badly, fucking _take it_!”

He tosses the bag blindly and watches as the hunter catches it with open arms, but rather than moving forward to help Zitao down from his perch, he begins to walk away and Zitao’s insides turn cold. “Wait - _wait_!” He cries out, but the hunter ignores him as though he were hard of hearing. Fine then, Zitao can get back down himself. 

Though - it is a long drop.

Okay, he can do it. Swing one leg over, then gently lower himself into a hanging position, and let go. Right? That would be the simplest plan of action to take. Breathing heavily, Zitao lifts his leg from his straddle and slides it over the thick of the branch, and with careful hands, he begins to slide his rear from the tree. “Careful!” He hears beneath him, ears beginning to fall deaf as the churning overtakes him. He can do it himself, he’s capable, so fuck what Chanyeol tells him.

With a great push, he falls from the tree.

“ _ **Careful**!!_ ”

When he lands, it’s with a resounding pain in his lower abdomen as he impacts the ground - which is unexpectedly _soft_ , he has to add, and he could have sworn dirt had less give than that. Groaning, he finds stability beneath his hands and lifts himself up, and it’s only then that he realizes he’s lifting himself off of a warm, breathing _body_.

He launches back in shock as Yifan coughs and attempts to sit up, clearly winded and on his right cheek lies a long smear of dirt as if he’d landed face-first when Zitao collided with him. “What the fuck are you doing?” Zitao barks at him, and the man manages to raise himself and find his breath again. “I told you to leave me alone!”

“Who else was gonna catch you?” Yifan asks between panting breaths, and when he inhales deeply, he begins to hack as though he’d swallowed some of the dried soil on the way down. “Don’t be so foolish, you could have gotten yourself killed.”

“I would have been just fine if you would listen to me for once,” Zitao retorts as he stands and brushes himself off. “When will you stop trying to rush in and save the day like some Prince Charming?”

“When you stop acting rash and putting yourself at risk!” Yifan yells hoarsely, and Zitao’s eyes go wide. “You could have burned to death, and you’re lucky you didn’t fall right into a seedling pit or you would have been _toast_ , Zitao, and you know it. Stop arguing with me.”

“I’ll do what I _want_!” The boy stomps and the churning intensifies, so when Zitao’s head whips to the source of the noise, his blood goes cold. The seedlings begin to rise and he watches in horror as they begin to tear pieces of their own scarred flesh from themselves with monstrous hands - seed pods - and roar as the pods fly. “ _Watch out_!”

Yifan - who has had just about enough of Zitao’s immature shit for one day, and knows for a fact this is all Zitao’s own fault - sucks in a breath as he latches onto the boy’s wrist and with strong arms full of tensing muscles, he lifts him up and over his shoulder onto his back to piggyback him. When Yifan takes off running with Zitao’s weight oscillating behind his shoulders, the hunters catch up with them and don’t spare a single word as the taller hunter procures something from his bag - some kind of weapon, long and metallic with multiple compartment rods and a tank on the side - and Zitao realizes that has to be the flamethrower the man had mentioned. 

“You take Tao out of here,” Chanyeol commands loudly over the cacophony of subhuman noises, “g _o_!”

With bated breath, Zitao relinquishes his grasp on the man’s body and tumbles from his hold against all command, and when Yifan realizes and spins around to grab him again, Zitao lurches down to snag the bow from the man’s backpack latch before dashing from his vicinity with an arrow in hand, some of the stolen explosives in his pockets. 

_They can tell me what to do all they want, but this my world, and I’ll prove it to them._

He weaves through clouds of burst spores and ducks past the armored shrapnel that flies at him from every corner as the pods launch the fragments of their shells into the sky, like metalled rain as the scraps fall to the ground and blanket it like dead leaves in the midst of dry winter. He takes cover behind a cluster of tall blueberry bushes long since riddled with shriveled leaves and decrepit berries and reaches down to tie one of the explosives to the tip of the arrowhead. “Alright,” he says to himself as he secures the shot. “Alright.” 

Across the field he can see the hunters directing most of them to their area, and when they get too close, Zitao watches as flames ignite from practically out of nowhere and winces as the seedlings begin to _shriek_ , the sound piercing through his head like a migraine, and he reaches up in pain to grab at his own head, feeling very much like someone is splitting his skull wide open. It takes all of his hard-earned might to open his eyes again and bear the deafening sounds enough to slide the arrow down along the hitch and hoist the bow up in the air, as he watches the seedlings all burn and watches as hunks of blackened flesh fall from their bodies, masses of infected growth long having fossilized along their skin, and he wonders in the back of his mind if maybe there could be a person still in there hidden beneath the inches of armoring. 

He tugs and lets the arrow fly, watching as it soars down the field and there’s a split-second of doubt that he missed, that the shot never registered, but one of the seedlings jerks as if startled and Zitao watches as the explosive bursts and engulfs the creature in flames, and watches as the hunters’ heads snap up as their eyes fall on him, startled and unexpectant and plenty angered. 

As the last of the creatures falls to its feet and slumps along the ground, the gurgling finally dissipates to the point where he can finally hear again, and utterly exhausted and worn thoroughly out, Zitao drops the bow and it takes every last drop of energy within him to not collapse to his knees. 

What feels like minutes pass before Zitao registers the sound of footsteps approaching, and when he catches his breath and opens his eyes, Yifan is stood before him with hands outstretched to catch him should he waver, and the hunters are zipping their bags back up and tossing them over their backs. Now that he can think over the pain and the noise, he feels slightly guilty for stealing the hunter’s belongings after having been told that the hunters have been robbed before and stopped trusting civilians because of it, and Zitao chews on his bottom lip as the group regathers.

“Welcome back,” Chanyeol says beneath his mask, chipper as ever, and Zitao has to look away. “Sorry about all that before. Everyone okay?”

“I’m alright,” Yifan says. “No bites. No spores.” 

“Sorry that you didn’t get a chance to fight, Yifan,” the shorter hunter smiles. “We didn’t want you two to waste any ammunition trying to take these big guys out.”

Yifan shakes his head passively, “No worries. Are you okay, too, Tao?”

The boy is reluctant to view him this closely but against his better judgment, he finds himself glancing up and meeting the man’s soft brown eyes, gentle as always and shining with patience. Bravely, however, he straightens his posture and looks over at the hunters, both stone-faced and exactly the same as they have always been, and Zitao takes a giant leap of faith as he makes eye contact with the taller hunter and says, “Sorry, Chanyeol.”

He expects the beating - the hits, the punches, the grabbing of his hair and tossing him around like he’s mere fabric - but the hunter does none of that. In fact, the hunter smiles, and when it begins to creep Zitao out, the man starts to speak, “Look at you, apologizing for once.”

He deadpans. “Okay, fuck you too.”

“I told you, Tao,” the hunter continues as his face gleams in the sunlight, “there’s nothing wrong with asking for help, sometimes. All you had to do was ask, not steal my bag and go do it for yourself.”

“We’re here to help you, Tao,” Baekhyun stresses gingerly. “We’re not here to hurt you.”

“And me shooting you out of the tree with one of the shots was just to get you down, I wasn’t actually trying to hurt you,” Chanyeol reassures him, and Zitao frowns as he looks away. “Anyway, to Paradise Village?”

The hunters direct them back to the path and back to the road, but Zitao’s mind continues to roam and when they make it onto the highway again, Zitao stills on the sand by the side of the road. It takes a few seconds for them to notice he’s missing, however, and with his hands lingering on his backpack straps and his bottom lip between his teeth, he says, “Iqaluit... actually.”

When the hunters turn to him, Zitao both sees and hears how confused they are when Chanyeol asks, “Iqaluit? I thought you just wanted to get out of the city.”

_Deep breaths,_ he reminds himself. _Deep breaths._ “We’re… we’re trying to get to Iqaluit by the end of our journey. We’re trying to get to the medical base up there, but… if we run into more seedling nests…”

Shocked, Chanyeol asks, “You’re not seriously trying to cross the tundra on _foot_ , are you?”

Tisk. “I’ll cross whatever I wanna cross.”

He begins to walk away, but two warm hands grab him by the arms and bring him back to his spot, and when he attempts to pull himself from that hold and feels those familiar fingers tighten, he sighs and rolls his eyes, accepting his fate. “We’re trying our best to go underneath the island rather than up and around it,” Yifan explains calmly. “That way neither of us gets frostbite trying to make this happen. And yes, that may mean we have to go on foot, but if we have to do so, then so be it.”

The hunter mulls it over with his tongue in his cheek, nodding as the sentiment settles in his mind, before saying, “Well, we’d be glad to help you out, but for something so far, we do require a share of profit. Fifty-fifty, only; we’re not interested in taking more.”

“Done,” Yifan chuckles. “Are you sure that’s all you want? We couldn’t possibly force you to come all the way to the island with us, I mean your guys’ hideout is in Winnipeg.”

“They can come back whenever they want,” Zitao whines. “Fine, you guys can tag along and help us. But on one condition - you touch either of us or any of our stuff when we least expect it, and I get to slit your throats wide open and leave you to a pack of infected.”

“Fair enough,” Chanyeol agrees after a few moments. “But what if the two of you do something to us when we’re not expecting it, either? If we hurt you and we have to fork over our own supplies, I think we deserve some kind of compensation should you do it to us.”

That is true, and Zitao takes their request into consideration. “Fine. Then I’ll give you Yifan.”

The men nod in agreement, solemnly swearing to themselves to live up to the expectations given and uphold the standards presented before the sound of a bowstring slackening reaches their ears.

“Wait, what?”

 

 

 

 

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	6. Chapter 6

 

 

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II: Paroxysm

(pār'ək-sĭz'əm) _noun._

asevere attack or a sudden increase in intensity of a disease, usually recurring periodically.

 

 

 

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“What’s the next move, then?”

As the newly-delegated vagabond leader of this group of exiled castaways, Zitao has to organize their next move, as though an organized brigade. Although the hunters may be in possession of many years of experience traversing this side of the country, their next moves are all dependent on Zitao’s word, as it is his goal only that they are willfully ardent to complete. However, inexperienced with this side of the province, Zitao has no knowledge of the points in the middle of his journey before they cumulatively connect. “Don’t ask me,” he shrugs, arms crossed. “I’m from the coast, I’on know shit about this area. You guys do, so you tell me where we’re going.”

Despite his bitterly passive countenance, however, the hunters offer him dual smiles. More of a maverick than his own husband, Baekhyun takes the liberty to offer up his own ticket of advice. “Well, you said you’re trying to get to Iqaluit, right? Feel free to oppose me on this, but I think it would be smart to make the trip in increments city by city, rather than one long line not knowing where exactly we’ll be heading or what we might find along the way.”

Zitao, however, does not appear to be much of a fan of being made to wait, even if the wait may be environmental. “I told you I’m getting to Iqaluit as fast as I’m fucking able to,” he chews him out. “How do I know my mom will even live to see tomorrow?”

“Tao,” Yifan comments in a withered voice, stepping into the boy’s personal space bracket to keep him grounded. As Zitao eyes him unhappily, the scent of citrus peels washes over him once more.“We couldn’t get you to Iqaluit by tomorrow even if we _wanted_ to. We do, however, have to figure out a plan of action by which to get you there, okay? This is going to take a very long time, Tao, and if you don’t learn to have some patience, you won’t make it there.”

Irate, Zitao crosses his arms and huffs vexedly, “Well, maybe sometime today, you can tell me where we’re supposed to fucking go, then. I’m not getting any younger over here, and my mother isn’t getting any more alive over there.” 

“Be respectful, Tao,” the shorter hunter tells him along a spent sigh, as he lowers the straps of his knapsack from his shoulders and gathers it in his hands. “I should have a map somewhere in here, just hold tight for a second.”

Zitao, however, snorts and removes his own backpack from his own shoulders in a similar fashion. “Don’t bother - I have a map, and it’s marked. I actually have somewhat of a loose plan of escape. Here.”

Briskly, Zitao unzips his bag before lifting the folded map out of it, slightly torn at the corners and scuffed along the smooth backing. Thanking him, Baekhyun takes the map before unfolding it in his hands and extending it for himself as well as their two soft-spoken guests to read alongside him, curious eyes trained on the glossed paper. “So you really just have a few major cities marked,” Baekhyun notes aloud, more to himself than anyone, yet perhaps somewhat to Zitao by the trajectory of his words. “And you have Yellowknife marked?”

“Yeah,” Zitao nods flatly, voice monotonous. “That was my next planned stop after Winnipeg, but I don’t know where I am right now, and therefore I don’t know how to get to Yellowknife from right here.”

“We’re not that far outside of Winnipeg,” Chanyeol informs him, “but Yellowknife is pretty out of the way. I mean, of course, it will get you to where you need to go, but if you’re really in a rush, Yellowknife is entirely out of the way because it would have you heading far north to then swing east toward the island. It would be quicker to simply continue this way east to then head north to the island, but it’s your map, so, therefore, your decision.” 

The boy furrows his eyebrows then, visibly confused as he steps over to glance at his own map as though having been unaware all this time that he had made such a mistake. It hadn’t been him who had marked the map - it had been Evelyn, and at the time, still practically mute and inexperienced in every way with the ways of the crude world, Zitao hadn’t stopped to think that perhaps she could have misunderstood the urgency in his tone to reach his goal as quickly as humanly possible. As he trains his eyes on his map, though, it becomes all too aware that Evelyn had drawn him a supply-heavy path instead of a time-efficient one, circling each and every massive city along a northeast path to take him across the lake and toward the island, rather than around it in one way or another. In short, Zitao had not taken his own ardor into consideration and had merely improvised, and the thought that he could be incorrect really pisses him off. 

Disgruntled, lips trembling as he sinks his teeth into them, Zitao swats the map out of their hands and ultimately tears it in the process. “ _You_ fucking reroute us, then!”

Disturbed by yet another one of the boy’s outbursts, Yifan solemnly reaches for him, sliding warm hands up his arms as he presses them stubbornly to his sides, warmly reassuring and soothing in a filial sense, the one and only peacenik to have trained experience in calming down the boy with a gun strapped to his leg and a preserved flower around his neck. “Hey,” Yifan offers in a warm tone, soft without becoming inaudible. “It’s alright, everyone makes mistakes. We can just reroute our plans and then we can get going, okay? It’s alright.”

It is simply weird how the herbal notes of the spices and the energizing scent of the citrus has the ability to enclose Zitao in a sense of safety, knowing very well that he cannot detect the scents that threaten him whenever Yifan is around, and Zitao doesn’t dare call it comfort that he finds in Yifan’s newly-personalized purpose of keeping him safe. “Get your _bloody_ hands off of me, fruit boy,” Zitao grumbles, scleras shadowed. 

“Only if you promise not to hurt either of them,” Yifan scolds him in a skeptical tone, as though a parent to their developing child and Zitao’s eyebrows knit together.

“What am I, five?” Zitao finds himself asking out of sheer malcontent. “I _can_ fucking control myself sometimes, you know. Unlike _you_ and your gross ability to not follow rules.”

Bravely, Chanyeol steps forward with a hand outstretched to gather their attention, and Zitao’s cold eyes flit over to him as he comes into focus. “May I?” Chanyeol asks patiently. “We wouldn’t at all mind rerouting the two of you, because like you said yourself, we know this area better than you both might. And don’t worry, I understand that Yellowknife might be large and might have plenty of supplies for us to gather, but the sheer length of the time it would take to arrive and then return would make supply hunting arbitrary, really, and disadvantageous at best. Simply put, it would just be a waste of our time.”

“Then take us somewhere else if you think your way is so fucking great,” Zitao fights back, and Yifan’s fingers trail heavily along his biceps once again to grab before Zitao wrenches his arms away with curled fists. 

“Tao,” Yifan hisses gently, disapproving as the boy squirms out of his hold with snarled lips. As Zitao settles into a stubborn silence, Yifan allows the self-admission that Zitao is someone he cannot change, and he leaves it alone as he turns his attention back to the hunters. “Where is the next big city?” He asks, leaving Zitao in his personal bubble should he need to grab hold of him once more to put him back in his place. “Somewhere closer and along the way that would make searches worth the effort.”

As though pondering it, the hunters make eye contact with each other, wholly thoughtful as though having to sort through their memories of this area of the province. As their thoughts settle, Baekhyun glances over at them with ideation in his eyes. “We could stop in Vermilion Bay,” he tells them. “It’s a few days away by foot, just on the edge of the highway. It’s pretty straight-lined from here if you would be alright with that, Tao. It’s a pretty big city, got a lot of cathedrals and shops. After that, I say we could continue far east into Quebec before swinging hard north toward the Hudson Strait. Does that sound doable to you?”

“Are you being condescending to me?” Zitao asks with heat in his eyes, fire bubbling beneath his skin. Catching onto his tone, however, the hunter shakes his head.

“Not at all,” Baekhyun offers words of sincerity, but Zitao does not buy it. “I’m merely trying to help you, Tao, because I don’t know what works for you.”

Among the kindled arguing, the taller hunter takes the bleat of self-silence to gather Yifan close and whisper in his ear, offering surreptitious words that the archer responds to with a smile and a warm gaze. “Can I offer an opinion?” Yifan pipes up. “I think straight-lining it would be best that way there’s less of a chance for us to get ourselves lost, and getting lost can stress Tao out an awful lot, and I’d like to cause him as little stress as physically possible. You know, for the sake of myself as well as my pain threshold.”

“Don’t be such a kiss-ass,” Zitao scoffs. “You’re the one that causes me stress. All you fucking do is hover over me and act like a dumbass.”

“As the name equates,” Chanyeol continues without heretofore permission, “Vermilion Bay is just that, and it lies on the outskirts of several lakes. If we’re lucky and if we pray to our respective stars that nobody else had the same idea and ransacked the utility buildings, we might be able to find some regional maps and maybe even a compass.”

Inhaling, the shorter hunter decides to add to the conversation, “We could prioritize stopping there for supplies, and then perhaps making it a milestone stop to land in Gull Bay afterward. Once you hit Gull Bay, you can then start going southeast toward the capital before starting to turn northward to head toward the island.”

“That’s a good idea,” Yifan, ever-impressed and taken aback by the lore of midwestern people, as it seems to be that with every minute he spends around a midwesterner, he falls into a spell of learning more and more. “Besides, we are running a little bit low on water. And plus, look at it this way - a compass would really keep us from getting lost especially if we have to trail off of the roads. Is that okay with you, Tao?”

“I already told you, whatever gets me to Iqaluit faster,” Zitao shrugs where he’s closed himself off, his body language rigid and cold as he remains safely aloof and untouchable. “I’m clearly an idiot who doesn’t know right from left, so my only available means of action left is to let the _big smart men_ do it for me.”

As it becomes increasingly clear that Zitao’s sardonic conversation is not one that allows for impressionism and movement, the hunters watch him with wary gazes, merely pussyfooting in worry that they may at any moment set Zitao off and cause him to violently lash out. For where their silence leaks into a pause, the archer takes initiative to handle it as he says, “I think you’re pretty smart, contrarily,” and when Zitao reacts bitterly by rolling his eyes, Yifan doesn’t back down. “We all make mistakes sometimes, and look - we helped you fix the mistake, and this way everything will turn out okay. You _are_ excited to get back on track, aren’t you?”

The boy scoffs, “What do _you_ think, Bighead? I have a job to do, and that’s to get my ass across this country so I can see my mother again. If you all don’t mind, I’ve had enough of this group flirting and I would like to actually make progress sometime today. Follow if you want, or don’t, but I’m leaving.”

As Zitao uncrosses his arms to turn on his heel and walk away, the archer lets out a tensed breath he’d held within him for a very long moment, and the hunters offer him equal glances of sympathy, as though to say _we now see what you deal with on a regular basis, and we apologize greatly on your behalf, for it takes a special breed of human to muster up the patience for someone like him_. Having grown up pacifistic and open-minded about every crevice in the thickets of the world, Yifan holds no aspersions toward people different than him. Zitao is merely himself, is cross and testy by nature, and Yifan is very much aware that the two of them are fated to do nothing but clash, as sour and sweet do not often mix. 

As the sun gleams brightly in the daytime air, casting shadows down onto their faces and across the pavement that arch in phantasmal silhouettes, they edge closer and closer to an impasse with each step that the boy in black takes eastward down the painted lines. 

“Vermilion Bay,” Yifan repeats in a confirmative tone, a single arrow laid slack in his hand. “That’s really a place that exists and you’re not just leading us to nothing, right?”

Soothingly, then, Baekhyun shakes his head as his freckles contrast in the warm sunlight. “Cross my heart and hope to die,” he promises him, words august as the day bares his truth. “We’ve accepted that Tao may never believe us, but we are not leading the two of you to an inevitable death. Vermilion Bay is just across the provincial border, so the two of you can graciously regard it as a checkpoint, if you will, to have finally left the west and to have stepped foot into Ontario. Think of it as the last time you’ll ever see this province again.” 

Philosophically, the words deliver him plentiful emotion despite it not being his mission, and Yifan ardently kindles the knowledge that he can mark it down in his own personal achievement archive that he traversed himself into Ontario entirely on foot. “Tao is thankful deep down,” Yifan tells them kindly. “He might never say it, but he is.”

“He’s also quick-footed,” Chanyeol notes with a lopsided grin. “We’d better get going soon before we lose him entirely.”

Long since initiated with this behavior, Yifan only offers them a piteous smile as they rejoin the breeze where it rolls along the leaves, gently blowing their hair back as they traverse eastward away from the sunlight. 

 

 

 

 

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“The Wave of Hunger brought a lot of injured children to the holding facilities,” Chanyeol tells them as he sets down an ace of spades to accommodate Yifan’s seven of hearts, and with twisted mirth in his expression, the hunter snatches both cards from the flat of the sheet and reclaims them into his pile. “Governmentally, the facilities were kind of forced to lie to everyone because if they didn’t, it would cause mass hysteria, so when the families would bring in their children who had been exposed to the virus in one way or another, we as staff were conditioned to lie to them and tell them that we had treatment available to inoculate the virus. Of course, we didn’t, and all of those children died, but there was nothing we could have done even if we hadn’t lied.”

“Was overpopulation an issue?” Yifan asks out of curiosity, flipping over a queen of clubs as Baekhyun matches him with a queen of spades. “I heard that sometimes facilities would turn people away simply due to overcrowding, that they just simply didn’t have enough room to immunize the children.”

“It was pretty hectic,” the shorter hunter chimes in softly, the glow of the fire illuminating his face in a dimmed orange haze, “and it was often very distressing to turn away tearful mothers with their injured children and to have to tell them to beg elsewhere. As a nurse rather than a holding guard, it was upsetting to have to watch the children deteriorate day in and day out when there was nothing we could possibly do.”

Yifan splays out his cards in the breadth of his fingers, merely a hand of five left as he begins to lose pitifully to Chanyeol’s gluttony. “Yeah, I didn’t have an easy time as a nurse, either. I worked in the neonatal unit most of the time, where we had to hold onto newborns to scan them for the virus to practically pick out the hungries among the lot, and the ones that were found to be positive for the virus had to be moved to hematology until the staff discovered how to make the virus react early. If they ever succeeded in making it react and having the virus wake before they were older, I would assume they would be moved to the oncology ward, but I never experienced that for myself.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” the taller hunter comments dryly, bitterly, as he lays down a four of diamonds and is unjustly defeated by Yifan’s card and a well-deserved, respondent coo of joy. “After I was injured and had to be patched up as I told you the other day, I wasn’t allowed to regain my spot on the front lines until my muscles had healed so that I didn’t tear anything from overexertion, so I was practically bedridden in the mass den and only had the nurses as well as those around me to keep me company.” 

“He got very annoying very quickly,” Baekhyun interrupts with a few giggles, airy and flirtatious as he covers a broad smile with a shy hand, an expression of pure admiration painted across his features. “Sweet, just very bothersome.”

Feigning insult, the hunter gasps and splays a hand across his upper chest, eyebrows knitted. “You told me I was charming and pedantic.” 

“Once I got to know you, of course, you were,” the man laughs, “but this was after you would pretend to be more injured than you actually were to gain my help and attention.”

“It worked, though,” Chanyeol smiles. “And on my fourth day, I remember, I asked one of the other nurses if I could take a walk around the facility to exercise my muscles that I hadn’t gotten to use in almost a week, so I walked through the whole building to stretch my muscles out. Wasn’t all that sore, or anything. Headed up to the oncology ward, which turned out to be a big mistake on my part, because when I walked by, one of the hungries saw me - and I could just… _see_ the bloodlust in its eyes, the hunger, and the starvation, and before I knew it, the kid was turnin’ before my very own eyes, yanking them damn tubes out of his arms and bleeding all over the bed as he charged for the door. Me being injured, I couldn’t run away very quickly, but the last thing I’d seen was a nurse dashing into the room and the kid clamping down on the side of her neck, and I went back down to the holding room and yelled for help.”

Eyes wide, Yifan’s grip on the cards slackens, his lips falling open in surprise. “Holy shit,” he mumbles, breathless. “I… I can’t imagine what that’s like.”

“It sucks,” Zitao comments quietly beside all of them, having had his imagination forcibly painted with a very vivid image of what he might soon become, and Baekhyun’s shoulders jump as they once again register the boy’s silent presence. “You can’t predict a rural hungry until they smell you. That boy must have been fucking _starved_ if he was able to pick up your scent from that far away.”

Trumping Baekhyun’s five with an eight, Chanyeol snatches the cards up and slides them into his own deck, effectively withdrawing Baekhyun from the remainder of the game. “Sucks to be you, loser,” the hunter grins mischievously, mirth on his lips as his husband bluffs a sulk. “In all honesty, I have nothing to do with hungry holding so I had no idea if they were feeding them or if they weren’t, but the virus isn’t supposed to react until it matures at age ten. I had safely assumed that the staff had not taken into account that forcing the virus to mature early would also bring the symptoms of hunger with it. A pretty stupid move, I’d say, to remain that blissfully ignorant, but now they’re down two nurses and I was almost bitten. Thank you for tuning into this week’s episode of _Times I Almost Died_ , I’ll be here all week.”

As the men laugh quietly and shake their heads at the meager twists and turns of the hunter’s story, Zitao zones in and out of awareness as the noises around him seem to intensify. Being late evening, the sky has dipped just below a saturated cerulean toward a starless indigo, the crickets have begun to chirp and hum in their shrill rhythm, and Zitao finds himself unable to pay attention to anything other than the sounds. He watches as the men trade cards, slapping them excitedly down onto the sheet stretched across the flattened earth to keep their belongings clean before one of them joyously takes hold of their newly-won cards and brings them into their own possession. How inconsequential, to engage in a card game while humanity is crumbling around you. Zitao finds it painfully ironic, to initiate one of the most humane games one could possibly play, when in the face of the destruction of the same humanity. 

What happens if they find out what he is, he wonders? What will they do if they find out, and more importantly, how will they look at him? While Zitao is not one to worry about the impressions he leaves on people, it is an immediate concern of how they will see him after a permanent information spill because it could spark the risk of treason. Zitao doesn’t know them - they’re hunters, after all, self-proclaimed _infected_ hunters, and if they knew that Zitao was one of them, he’s absolutely certain they would put one right between his eyes. While he knows that he more than likely has more finely-tuned reflexes than two hunters, he doesn’t exactly desire to know in what way they’ll sneak one on him.

Moreover, how will Yifan react, and will he turn on him, as well? Wait, why the fuck is he worried about what _Yifan_ thinks? 

Scowling, he draws his legs close to him and wraps his arms around himself, effectively closing himself off from the conversation as he stares at the discarded playing cards with averse eyes, lost inside his own amygdalic fog. 

“Tao,” he hears beside him, and he jumps a little, nearly out of his skin, as the sound rips him from his thoughts, loud in his ears as though spoken directly into his ear canal. When he registers everything around him with clarified vision, he notices the hunters and the archer looking at him with similarly concerned gazes, Yifan having been the one to speak to him from several feet away. As his heartbeat simmers back down to a normal regularity, confusion begins to creep into the edges of his conscience. Yifan doesn’t often speak loudly - Zitao knows this, for when the man uses his typical conversational tone of speech, it’s quite soft and mellow, not at all harsh on the ears or of too-high a decibel.

Confused, Zitao’s eyebrows stress downward, his rationale not able to make sense of why the sounds seem so intense tonight. “What?” He finds himself asking, foggy and halfway lost, glancing from each set of eyes to the next. Had he missed something important?

“You okay?” Yifan asks him carefully, voice more than likely soft and cautious as stereotypical of him, but in Zitao’s ears, it sounds like shouting. Cotton-mouthed, Zitao sinks his teeth into his lower lip as he stares down at the sheet beneath him, pale and cream-toned and stained from years of use, as he tries to convince himself that it can’t be what he thinks it is. It can’t be, it simply can’t be.

How long has it been since he had last fed?

Pulse hammering against his skin as his blood threatens to bubble, panic attempts to bleed into the nooks of his being. He’d last fed that one night before they had crossed paths with the hunters, the night that he had screamed in Yifan’s face and demanded he be left alone. How long ago had that been?

His blood runs cold as he counts back the days - that had been _six days ago_. 

He’s never gone more than a week without feeding ever in his life, perhaps save for the four years he had been medically imprisoned in his own body, yet Zitao has a feeling that they might have instilled within him fresh blood intravenously during those years. Ever since having escaped the facility, he’s never gone this long without feeding. Sucking in a shuddering breath, his nerves begin to buzz. Is he... beginning to turn?

How is he supposed to tell them that he needs to feed?

“I’m fine,” he huffs out in a tight voice, his own voice sounding far too loud to his own ears, and the card game is soon forgotten as the group looks less than convinced. 

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Baekhyun asks him, unease etched into his features. “You do look kind of pale. Here, let me feel your forehead.”

The hunter extends a hand to reach across the space between them toward Zitao’s face, yet as his flesh draws closer, Zitao catches the scent of his rich blood beneath the supple skin, and he nearly retches as he turns away, averting his nose toward the archer beside him. “No, I’m fine,” he tells them shakily, his hair falling over his eyes and brushing his cheekbones as he hides. If he is truly beginning to starve and turn, of course, he would be paler - he is going to become sallow, soon, and it may only be a matter of a few days before he turns completely and lashes out. He needs to find a way to feed soon, or this group is going to become his next meal, and Zitao has to try his hardest to resist his pathogenic instincts.

Unconvinced, however, Yifan exhales slowly nearby, setting his cards down and shifting in his seat to bring himself only inches closer, still giving the boy ample personal space. “Tao, if you’re really not feeling well, you can tell us. Do you want us to call it a night so you can sleep early? Do you need to vomit?”

Zitao isn’t sure _what_ the fuck it is that he’s feeling. He’s never experienced something like this before, and the thought that he may suddenly lose all touch with himself and lash out against his own will is chilling. Bothered, he stands from his spot and curls his hands at his sides, his skin pulsing in time with his heartbeat. There are three very fresh, very clean bags of hot, bloodied meat sitting mere feet from him, within arm’s reach at every side, waiting to be ravaged, waiting to be _devoured_ - 

“I’m going for a walk,” he stutters harshly, swallowing painfully, as he turns briskly on his heel to shield himself from the scents of their beating hearts. He needs to get away from them immediately before he makes an irrational decision he will regret and before he betrays his own principles and takes lives he’d never intended to take. 

Maybe, just maybe, if he escapes far enough, he’ll be able to feed without having the scent of the fresh blood wafting unluckily over to them and alerting them. Maybe -

“Wait!” The archer calls out as Zitao passes by a tree, and he glances back over his shoulder with traces of fear in his eyes outlined in desperation, practically pleading to be left alone on his own accord so that he may save his own life. Life, however, seems to be lacking the desire to fall in his favor as Yifan scrambles into standing with a raised hand, as though to catch Zitao’s attention, before approaching him with his short hair blown back among the movement. “I’ll come with you.”

“What the fuck?” Zitao’s gaze sharpens as he rapidly shakes his head. “No, mind your own fucking _business_ , Bighead, I want to go alone.”

“What if something happens to you?” Yifan asks rapidly, as though urgently, and Zitao has to suppress an eye-roll. 

“Can’t you just leave me the fuck alone for once?” Zitao spits angrily, and Yifan takes a half-step back in shock, as though not having intended nor expected to piss the boy off this way. “Am I not allowed to have privacy at all?”

“If you really are sick, Tao, I don’t want you going off alone,” the man tells him, his tone concerned. “At least let me watch out for you while you’re not feeling well.”

Arguing with Yifan is something Zitao likes to pretend he is adept in yet he knows he is only skilled in when this _arguing_ turns into _enraged screaming_ and when Zitao loses his temper and explodes. In terms of casual arguing, Zitao is a surefire loser, less than experienced and not at all patient enough to banter with such a naive idiot. “You stay ten feet back,” Zitao spits at him as he turns back around and stomps toward the darkness of the woods, and Yifan is quick to follow him from a sizable distance.

Having been out on foot on his own for such a short period of time that somehow has begun to feel as though years, Zitao has begun to grow weary. As the hunger buzzes beneath his skin, he can’t help but think back to the day he had told his mother about what he was. He had been hungry just days prior and had fled his own house to protect his mother from his instincts. Why aren’t hungries instilled with a biological ability to choose between right and wrong? Why did he have to be born with a fractious pathogenic thirst for killing those around him? 

Sighing, he wraps hands around himself and braces them softly on the thicks of his upper arms, the night air cool and his sweater thin, hanging loosely at his elbows and wrists and crocheted at the chest, the chilled wind swirling against his partially-exposed skin through the loosely-knotted wool. How did he even get himself into this big of an ordeal? It shouldn’t be this difficult to schedule time alone to find something to eat, yet Yifan of all people seems to be the most incessant and Zitao finds himself struggling to get out of the man’s sight for more than a few minutes. 

He wishes that somehow there could be a way to suppress the symptoms he experiences when bloodthirsty, whether it be a topical cream to quell the buzzing of his skin or even a supplement to help slow the hunger until he can manage to feed, and Zitao absolutely fucking hates this. He knows that he truly deserves to be dead, that someone who lives as though vampirically does not deserve to thrive around healthy, unsuspecting humans, and Zitao hates this.

It is not quite that Zitao is _afraid_ of attacking them, but more so that he is afraid of admitting to himself that he had attacked innocent humans, whereas Zitao has already become numb to the same inclination when animals are involved. 

Huffing to himself, he rapidly swipes his hands up equal arms in order to create friction to warm himself. It is definitely not that he is beginning to get _used_ to having these people by his side. It is definitely not an attachment, for it is Zitao making a sensible, moral decision for his own sake.

He is snapped out of his self-destructive thoughts as something heavy is wrapped around him and warmth falls down upon him guided by weight atop his shoulders, and he jitters as he glances over. Yifan is stood immediately behind him in his dark long-sleeve and his cord-tie leather vest, and he’s draped his wintry coat precariously over Zitao’s shoulders. As the chill of the wind ceases its dance against his skin and the aroma of citrus floats around him once more, Zitao finds his mind beginning to clear as his instincts neutralize and his senses return to normal. “What are you doing?” He finds himself asking in a taut voice, his words prickly against his tongue. 

Yifan, then, drops his hands from Zitao’s arms, leaving the coat blanketed around the boy’s lithe body, and Yifan’s hair cards prettily away from his forehead in the breeze as he takes several mini-steps back to allot Zitao his much-desired personal space. “You’re freezing out here,” Yifan comments softly, and the boy makes note of how muffled the sounds have become in comparison to before. “You should have taken your jacket with you.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Zitao grumbles. “I told you that I wanted to be alone.”

Unconvinced, however, Yifan visually rolls through a sigh, dejection glazing over his eyes in the moonlit darkness as Zitao selfishly burrows away into the man’s coat, grabbing the unzipped lapels and tugging it around his front. Selfless and unbothered, Yifan presses his lips tightly together as he thinks about his next words. “Is something on your mind, Tao?” He asks carefully, leaving the sentence depressed and level so as to not give Zitao a window of opportunity to read too far into his tone. “You seemed really out of it back by the fire. Is there anything you want to talk about?”

Closing himself off, Zitao buries his nose in the collar of Yifan’s coat, inhaling citrus and keeping himself calm, for he doesn’t know if the scent has worn off of Yifan’s actual body and if it _has_ , Zitao might be in trouble. “No,” he quips quickly, stubbornly, his dark hair curtaining around his eyes. “Am I not allowed to just be alone? What are you, my _father_?”

“Tao,” Yifan presses once more, equally gently and yet there is stress in those eyes, as though pained to be arguing with him. “What’s the matter?”

“ _Nothing_!” Zitao stresses with exhaustion in his voice, his tone much like that of a person exactly his age arguing with a parent. “Stop trying to read my mind, it’s fucking weird. Can’t a guy just be left alone to walk through the woods without something being the matter with him?”

It is not that Zitao doesn’t deserve personal space in his mind, but merely that it is unlike Zitao to space out so deeply that Yifan has to repeat his name four times to get his attention. When Zitao spaces out this deeply, it often means he’s thinking. About what? Yifan isn’t exactly sure, and he can’t help but feel curious about what may have been on the boy’s mind. “I’m not trying to stifle you,” Yifan sighs and bares his opinion, holding up broad, emptied palms as a peace offering, “but I could tell you were thinking about something, Tao. Is everything okay?”

Seeming to have been caught, Zitao averts his eyes. “I can’t tell you,” he settles with quietly, and the statement feels like fingers tightening around Yifan’s heart. It’s not something he can exactly tell the whole world about, like a successful pregnancy or a new crush. Zitao has no idea how to tell them that he is trying to distance himself from them before he kills one of them, if not all. 

“You can’t?” The archer asks, his voice heavy with dejection as though having been recently broken-up with. “It’s just me, Tao, nobody followed me here. You can tell me anything, I won’t mind. I promise.”

_I promise._ Tears threaten Zitao’s waterlines as he averts his eyes to the pale, dusty glow of the moonlight so as to soak his tears back into his sockets. Yifan’s promise means absolutely nothing because Zitao knows very well that if the man knew exactly what it was that Zitao means to tell him, he would no longer abide by his own promise that everything would be okay. Zitao wishes from the very bottom of his heart that living life as what he is could somehow be okay. “I can’t,” he admits sullenly.

Sweetly, Yifan accepts it well, sucking in a slow breath as he nods his head. It’s alright, Zitao probably just needs time to think about things, for he is a person, after all, just like Yifan is, and people desire oftentimes access to silent thinking. However, Yifan is no stranger to settling the minds of those who are perturbed, and he knows how soothing the comfort of another could possibly be. “Alright,” he comments contentedly, and Zitao faces him with glassy eyes. “Then let’s just walk, and you can clear your head.”

Zitao, of course, would normally shove him away and demand he turn back so that Zitao can run off to feed, but Yifan’s coat seems to be the one and only saving grace keeping the virus at bay, and Zitao is too afraid to take it off and begin to smell the world around him once more. Subjecting his exhaustion to Yifan’s company, Zitao merely nods on autonomy, and Yifan offers him a kind grin as he begins to walk with him.

Truthfully, Zitao doesn’t understand what this guy’s ulterior motive could possibly be - if Yifan really were as heartless as every hunter Zitao had crossed paths with ever since fleeing from the police, he would have made at least a single attempt to rob Zitao blind in his sleep, or worse, to take advantage of him in his sleep. Where Zitao let his guard down in moments of emotion and hunger, Yifan never once stepped out of line to make him physically uncomfortable and instead treated him as though his own child - why? Zitao can’t find a way to make sense of it all.

“Sometimes,” Yifan begins to speak, and Zitao looks up at him in the darkness as they walk, the man’s silhouette haloed elegantly opposite the casted shadows, as the moonlight glistens across the man’s cheekbones and the bridge of his nose, “when I would get lonely back at the base, I would leave the premise and sit outside on the grass by the greenhouse and just look up at the stars. Just get lost in them, you know? It was… incredibly soothing. Just like tonight.”

Quietly, Zitao glances at the sky. The moon shines bright and reflects off of each star, sparkling in the sky like millions of lights.

“Oftentimes, I didn’t really have friends,” Yifan continues in a tender, gentle voice, “so I really had no one to voice my thoughts to. Watching the stars, though, it helped to clear my mind and actually helped me forget about all of my thoughts. More often than not, I found it so hard to just… wrap my mind around how the people I once loved would all someday turn into one of those things, and that… one day it would happen to me, also. I mostly worried that it would happen when we all least expected it - that I would turn in my sleep, or that the virus would become airborne and would take us all out when we couldn’t do a damn thing about it.”

Zitao, who has never stepped foot onto an orchestrated sanctuary base, has no self-knowledge of what this kind of lifestyle might be like to live. “But you were on an island,” he adds. “Shouldn’t an island be safer in terms of how much access the ground virus has to infiltrate?”

“That’s why I feared it would become airborne suddenly,” Yifan admits with a sigh, eyes trained forward on the sky as the trees begin to clear, and Zitao notices they’ve reached another small clearing with berry bushes and prickly thorns. “And that’s why I sat under the stars most nights and just prayed and prayed for a future that would never come. I prayed for a future that thrived, a future that had healed and a future that had access to the end of this virus. It was the only thing that kept me calm most days was the blissful ignorance that the world may one day change for the better.”

He resists rolling his eyes as he wonders just how Yifan would react if he knew the very key he had been looking for all this time was standing just inches from him, separated by a foot’s worth of personal space and wrapped in a coat that had been stained with his own scent. He wonders how Yifan would react if he knew that Zitao had led him on and had chosen to not tell him that he would be responsible for saving the last-minute lives of many. “Wouldn’t that be the best?” Zitao asks rhetorically as they stop in the clearing, the trees on the front end caving in the middle to spotlight the moon and its ethereal glow, bright white and hazy among the cloudless indigo sky. “To somehow be able to wish upon a star and have the virus just magically disappear so everything that hasn’t been destroyed already can return to normal?”

The tone of Zitao’s voice catches him off-guard, so saturated in sadness and soaked in despair that Yifan has to turn to him with concern-laced vision, wondering if perhaps the boy may cry. It hurts him to see Zitao so numb to what has become of the world. In an attempt to console him, Yifan turns to him with lips parted in surprise and says, “Your mom is still out there, Tao, she has to be.”

Then, the boy’s shoulders shake in what Yifan registers to be the illusion of a laugh but is something emotionless and ironic. “In this kind of a world to live in, the chances are way too slim for her to have made it across the country, but do I have any idea how to admit that to myself and let it go? Of course not, and I’m likely just setting myself up for inevitable disappointment once I cross this bloody continent.”

“Don’t say that,” Yifan hisses empathetically. “She will be there, Tao. She will be.”

“And what makes you think that?” Zitao spits right back at him. “What makes you think the world would spare one woman when it didn’t spare millions? What makes you think she is any luckier than the luckiest people out there, _lottery winners_ , even, who were infected? What makes you think - what makes you think those vicious fucking hungries would have let _one_ person live when they wouldn’t let tens of thousands?”

The words die out in Yifan’s throat as he notices the tears that have gathered in Zitao’s eyes, and his chest begins to ache at the heartbreaking sight. “Please don’t cry,” he whispers soothingly, and Zitao sighs exasperatedly and turns his face to the sky as he pokes a trembling, pale hand out from the shadows of the coat and wipes the tears away with insistent fingers. 

“I’m not fucking crying,” Zitao tells him angrily. To think of something like _him_ taking out his own mother… “I told you I didn’t want to talk about it.”

Yifan gives him space. In order to allow Zitao to take calm breaths to will the emotion back down, clearly not comfortable with allowing his own self to cry in front of another person, Yifan gives him space. Zitao is fragile at this moment, and Yifan is worried that one too-weighted move could cause him to crumble, and as someone who very rarely shows the raw, unadulterated pain inside of him, Zitao is far too precious of a gem for Yifan to selfishly damage. 

In an attempt to calm himself down, then, Zitao kneels down, simply bends himself to ground-level as he reaches out with a curious finger and begins to trace lines and swirls in the soft dirt below. It’s incongruously cute and childish, and it’s in moments exactly like this that Yifan remembers he is dealing with a forcibly-matured child and not an immature adult. Bravely, Yifan steps quietly over with slow feet against crinkling leaves and pulls on the length of his pants as he kneels down to Zitao’s level. “Can I tell you a story?” He asks gently, and Zitao glances at him out of the corners of his sharpened eyes, as if not exactly saying no but rather giving a glimpse of an opportunity to take a yes. “When I was a nurse, I was in intensive care for about eight months in-between placement in the neonatal unit, and one time while I worked in intensive care, this tearful lady brought in this little boy who had been bitten and she had just _begged_ us to fix her son, to just do _something_ to help him. He was a very sweet boy, very small and of course very scared. Of course, we told her we _could_ help him because we were governed to lie, but deep down I think she knew he wasn’t going to make it.”

Zitao lifts his stained fingers from the dirt and flattens his palm against the cool earth, and smushes the dirt around against his skin. Quiet, he may be, but Yifan knows that he is listening.

“The woman left,” he continues, “and the boy was first brought to hematology and was then moved to intensive care because they had to operate on him for how deep the bite had been. So, days later, he was laid in intensive care with one kidney missing and only half a spleen left, and all he would do is cry and ask for his mother. I had no idea how to tell him that he might never see her again.”

The man lets out a small sigh as he reaches out and pokes a few dots into the dirt next to Zitao’s creative swirl-art, before drawing the outline of a basic flower, and consecutively, a crescent moon. 

“So, naturally, I made friends with him,” Yifan announces coolly as though speaking about a new pet. “He was reluctant to talk to me at first since I was always in scrubs, and nurses and doctors can seem kind of intimidating sometimes, but I introduced myself and at first, he was very closed off and refused to talk to anybody. Scared, he was, you know? Then over time, I discovered the one thing he really enjoyed doing, which was being read to by _me_. So, I would go down to the pediatric ward, which was being used for testing babies, and I would bring back some of the children’s books and I would read them to him, and he would smile and thank me for spending time with him. I felt bad for him, since it must get lonely to do nothing but lay in a medical cot and await your death. His favorite books were the fairy tales, where the princesses get rescued and then they fall in love with the prince who rescued them.”

Zitao’s brow knits as he steals a quick glance at Yifan’s countenance, and feels his heart take a dip as he notices how glossed over they’ve become, the story having made the man teary-eyed. Zitao feels a little bit less alone now, knowing he and Yifan are in similar boats. As the man describes the memory, however, Zitao can’t help but think back to the encounter in the apartment where he had stumbled upon Yifan moments away from shattering while sifting through baby toys. “You seem to love children a lot,” he comments absentmindedly, as though discussing the weather that day. “I’m guessing you, at one point, wanted your own?”

“Well,” Yifan smiles a little, “of course I _wanted_ children, but it became very clear when working at the base that if I were to ever make a woman conceive, she would run the risk of becoming infected and miscarrying the pregnancy. I would much rather not try at all than to know that I let my own child die.”

Zitao bites into his lips as he remembers just how devastated his mother had been when she had discovered that she may have put Zitao at risk for the infection when he had been in the womb, and Zitao hates to think about how she might have reacted had she been unlucky and had he ended up not making it full-term. As someone of still too young of an age to construct rational, mature thinking about conception, Zitao has never thought about having nor raising kids, yet as a gay man, he had never even debated thinking of impregnating a woman. 

As the silence pools between them, Yifan lifts his fingers from the plush dirt and wipes his hands together to clean them. “Do you feel any better?” He asks, and Zitao has to stop and take stock, not having thought about it, really. Does he feel better? Zitao doesn’t necessarily feel any less anxious or any less worried, but having been surrounded by only Yifan’s company and the odor of the repellant has proven to be calming, so yes, if speaking in terms of physicality, Zitao feels better. 

“I think so,” he admits quietly. “I think I’m ready to go back.”

“I’m glad,” Yifan smiles as they stand, and Zitao truly doesn’t understand how someone this close to crossing paths with death could do nothing but grin and bear the twists and turns of life. “It’s probably really late by now, and Chanyeol and Baekhyun might be setting up bedrolls by now.”

Albeit petulant and annoying, speaking privately with Yifan did help him clear his mind and it did get his attention off of the bloodlust which had coursed through his veins. Now that he can think in words rather than only hear the world bleat as though collective heartbeats, he somewhat regrets having made a scene. Guilty, he slides Yifan’s coat from his shoulders and shudders as the crisp lick of the wind returns to his skin. “Here,” he says as he holds the coat out in one hand for him to take. 

Jovial still, Yifan simply shakes his head as his lips curl into a grin. “No, it’s fine,” he tells him. “You need it more than I do.”

What is that supposed to mean? An eyebrow twitching, the irritation returns to Zitao’s gut, as his eyes sharpen and his mood flares once more. Moody and bothered that Yifan ultimately ruined whatever blissful mood there had been, Zitao lashes out and shoves the jacket into the man’s chest, as Yifan grapples for a hold on it, and Zitao storms away with curled fists and heavy steps.

Confused, Yifan has to jog to keep up with him as they return to camp.

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“Welcome back, you two,” Baekhyun greets them as they return, Yifan in his sheened overcoat and Zitao with his hands pressed against his arms, rubbing them for a glimpse of friction. “Chanyeol is going to set up a tent so we don’t get rained on by the leaves since it’s pretty windy tonight. Would you like to learn how to make one?”

Although Zitao had a moment of insecurity, he knows he needs to be smarter in the meantime while he has very limited if not absolutely no access to feeding, and crosses his arms protectively over his chest as he shakes his head, declining Baekhyun’s request. To fill in the space, however, Yifan raises an arm as a volunteered tribute. “I’ll help,” he chirps, as the hunters wave him over with hands full of cloth and thickened reeds. 

“So you take a sheet like this,” Baekhyun instructs, as Yifan gathers the closest edge of the sheet in his own hands, “and it’s a lot like making a fort when you were a kid because you just drape it over the branches here.”

Yifan watches intently as the hunter hoists the sheet over a way-high branch, arching the sheet down prettily like a curtained valence. “So, up here?” He asks as he reaches for a tree several feet away, lifting the sheet up to a branch just inches above Yifan’s height, despite being the tallest person to reside in the group. 

“Yep, just like that!” Baekhyun congratulates him. “And to keep them from slipping off at night, we use weighted ropes, which are just strands of corded rope that you can tie objects to using flexible reeds, like the ones you find by river banks. So, for example, large rocks work well as weights. Fallen branches, also. You fasten them to the ends of the rope, and because the rope itself has some weight to it, it works well to throw over the branch where you’ve laid out the sheet. The heavier the object, the better it has a chance of staying put.”

“Not valuables, though,” Chanyeol comments tautly, voice slightly strained as he hoists the sheet over his side of the tree. “We did that once, we had the bright idea of using filled water canteens since they’re very heavy when freshly-filled. Woke up to find them stolen, even though nothing else had been stolen. No food, no supplies, nothing - just the water canteens. Kinda sucked, even though we had extra empty ones in our bag, but still.”

“Yes, nothing you care about getting lost or stolen halfway through the night,” the shorter hunter laughs in tandem. “Anyway, thank you for helping, Yifan. I think we’re just about done here.”

“That’s it?” He asks, surprised. “That’s all?”

Smiling, the hunter nods. “That’s all there is to it. Well, it’s time to call it a night, yeah? I’m glad you two came back when you did - Chanyeol and I were getting worried that we would have to go wandering to find you, and we couldn’t exactly call out for you because that’s dangerous enough as it is.”

Yifan nods in understanding as the hunters clean up their area and begin to gather some of the wet moss from the side of the trees to place into the fire to douse it toward its death, dimming gradually and settling the clearing into a cool, archangelic glow that brings sleepiness to Zitao’s eyes, causing him to yawn and stifle it in the sleeves of his sweater. 

Satisfied with his handiwork, Yifan relinquishes his role as helper to return to his bag off to the side by Zitao’s feet, as the boy stands awkwardly by himself as though unsure of which moves to make or perhaps which words to say, and Yifan eyes him curiously. “Is everything alright, Tao?” He asks out of curiosity, and Zitao’s eyes meet his in a jagged swipe, as though startled.

“What do you mean?” Zitao blurts out in a low tone. “Everything’s fine. Shut up.”

Pursing his lips, Yifan guides his mind elsewhere as he lifts his backpack from the ground and dusts it off. Clearly, Zitao is not going to speak of the deeply-rooted conversation they had out by the moonlit clearing, and Yifan cannot say he is necessarily stunned that the boy is once again closed-off and irritable, as Zitao goes through moods that any young teenager would. Although oftentimes prickly, the boy reacts very honestly when presented with patience and compassion, and Yifan is happy to have extensive emotional thresholds containing both. 

“It’s time to hit the hay,” he tells Zitao as he lifts the boy’s bag for him in a single hand, the strap flourishing white lines across the man’s fingers where it weighs him down. “We’ve got a big day ahead of us - we reach Vermilion Bay tomorrow. Are you excited?”

The boy takes his bag from Yifan’s fingers as he shoots him an uncoordinated look, eyebrows tensed together. “Why would I be excited?” He asks. “Not knowing whether my mother is dead or alive is anything _but_ exciting.”

Watching the boy breeze past him with gait in his step as he sets his bag down beside their shared section of the makeshift tent, Chanyeol and Baekhyun’s side resting several feet away to give the archer and the teenager their own individual privacy so as to not be huddled up together like packaged sausages, Yifan sighs and hangs his head. He really has to learn how to phrase sentences correctly around someone as intelligent as Zitao. And the smartest move in this situation, Yifan knows from personal experience, is to merely not reply at all and to allow Zitao bragging rights to say that he has won the argument.

As Yifan watches Zitao kneel onto the breadth of the sheet and unzip his backpack to remove his blanket from it, Baekhyun catches their attention with a casual, “Here,” and when Yifan glances up, Baekhyun is tossing him something with the expectation that Yifan will catch it mid-air. Succeeding, Yifan looks down at the item he has been gifted - a tube of insect repellant. “You’ll need this when sleeping under trees,” Baekhyun tells him, stretching his arms and his neck in preparation for rest. “You see all kinds of shit about stereotypical _zombie apocalypse_ scenarios and how nothing else matters other than avoiding being bitten, but nobody ever reminds you that Lyme’s disease continues to exist. Stay safe and clean, you two. We don’t need you dying.”

“Thank you for the tip,” Yifan chuckles, lifting a hand to bid him adieu. “Goodnight.”

When he settles down for the night, he notices that Zitao has produced himself a blanket-burrito, complete with a corner of his blanket draped over his backpack to serve as a slightly more comfortable pillow and a side slot-pocket hybrid in which the boy places his water canteen. The sight is strangely kiddish and every bit as indubitably cute as Yifan would expect, and he finds himself smiling as he lays himself down for the night, mere inches away from the boy to give him personal space yet to not be too far away should Zitao have to get up to grab his attention for any reason.

Yifan does not own a blanket of his own, but this winter overcoat he had stolen off of a hunter last week sure feels nice, and although his legs are far too long to cover all of him, it will have to do.

He lays himself on his back and stretches the coat over himself, his head propped up on the edge of his own backpack before he finds himself curling comfortably over onto his side to allow his legs to curl up and find warm solace beneath the surface area of the coat. In this position, Yifan is presented with the boy’s back, wrapped up in the dark gray blanket with only the tips of ears and a few tufts of black hair peeking out. He remains silent, merely breathing, and merely watching Zitao breathe, in tandem.

Silently, Yifan realizes that he and Zitao cannot relate on very many fields at all. Sure, they have both lost people in their lives that they cared about very deeply, and they are both men, but what, other than those two meager individualities, do they have in common? Yifan was far too young to experience attachment to his parents when he had lost both of them to the rebellion and had nearly been very happily married. Zitao is fifteen, entirely lost in the world, and is fueled purely by anger and lack of fulfillment. Where Yifan sweetens the tea, Zitao adds salt. What, exactly, is the purpose of the two of them having crossed paths and having met each other? Although not religious, Yifan had always believed that every person oneself meets has been brought into their lives for a dignified reason. For Yifan to stumble upon a very troubled fifteen-year-old, what must fate have in mind for him? 

“Hey, Tao?” He whispers softly, hopefully quietly enough for only Zitao to hear. “Are you still upset?”

In front of him, the boy’s shoulders go slightly rigid as his ears disappear from view, sinking further down into the blanket as though trying to escape the outside. “I’m not upset,” the boy mutters from his blanket cocoon, and the corners of Yifan’s lips curl. 

“Okay,” Yifan sighs softly. “Goodnight, Tao.”

The boy does not respond as Yifan tucks his chin down into the warmth of his coat fur and closes his eyes, only letting out a slow, shuddering breath, as though having held it in for minutes. 

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 

 

 

“Get your _fucking_ hands _**off**_ me!! _**No**_!!”

Zitao whips his head around, his knife brandished in his hands as arms wind around Baekhyun’s neck, dark and muscular and keeping him controlled in a headlock, and as Chanyeol reaches out for him desperately before he is, too, grabbed, Zitao swears under his breath. Of course, the one fucking place they’ve been landmarking this whole time to reach would house _gangs_ of hunters just waiting for them to arrive, like sitting ducks. 

Panicking, Yifan scrambles for his bow and ultimately fumbles and drops several of his arrows in his process, and Zitao finds his eyes rolling at the sloppiness of his devotion. Knowing how clumsy the man can be, Zitao knows that he is alone in his battle - not that he’s necessarily never been confronted with this many hunters, but Zitao certainly doesn’t prefer to fight hunters. 

As he watches the hunter’s arms tighten, however, Zitao realizes he doesn’t have very much time before they literally _choke_ him to death. 

“What supplies you got, huh?” The burly hunter husks aloud into Baekhyun’s ear, vocal enough for all of them to hear. “I ain’t eaten in two fuckin’ days, you better have some food in there before you become the food, little boy.”

Stomach dropping, Zitao reacts autonomously and races forward with knife bared. “Go _fuck_ yourself,” he announces aloud as the hunter glances up at him, his free arm begins to stumble around his own body as though reaching for a weapon, but Zitao is quicker, sinking his knife into the man’s forearm and watching in twisted mirth as he groans loudly in pain and unwinds his arm from Baekhyun’s throat, allowing the man permission to breathe again, gasping and wheezing as oxygen floods back into his body. 

As Chanyeol rushes over to pick Baekhyun up off of the ground in loving arms, Zitao finds different hands winding around his own throat and lifting him effortlessly up off the ground, light as air as someone tucks his throat in the crook of their elbow and begins to squeeze, effectively and noisily choking him against his own will, and he begins to scramble for purchase on the arms wound around his neck, clawing desperately for release. “ _Let_ \- me _go_ \- ” he stutters out with limited speaking air, his chest beginning to tighten as his airway starts to close. 

“Not until you tell me where the fucking food is,” the hunter rasps threateningly into his ear, his English dialect thick and curved. “Now, where is it, you little bitch boy? _Huh_?”

“ ** _Tao_**!!” He hears and glances off to the side stationarily with blurred eyes. Yifan has his bow pulled taut, lined up with his line of sight as he stretches the bowstring along the hitch of his arrow, and Zitao’s heart rabbits in worry that Yifan may accidentally pierce him rather than the hunter after he very specifically told him fucking _not_ to, but Yifan never listens to him whatsoever. 

Desperately, he attempts to turn his knife in what limited space his hand has to swivel before the hunter catches on and knocks it out of his hand and he watches, pained, as the knife clatters to the ground below. No, _no_ , he can’t go like this - he can’t just _die_ like this, helpless and strangled, he is better than this. He’s got a penultimate weapon just beneath his nose, one that would send the hunter into a fit of uncontrollable spasms as he would turn, but no - he can’t show them all what he is. He can’t, they’ll _kill_ him. But he’s so… _so_ hungry.

As he fights, the hunter’s arm tightens around his throat even more, and he catches the scent of the hunter’s blood beneath the flesh mere _centimeters_ away from his face, and the hunger rages beneath his skin as his eyes begin to blacken. He is quickly losing this battle, quickly losing every strand of sanity he has left as the earthy scent wafts up into his nose, metallic and rich and hot, deliciously sinful and layered, and Zitao gags loudly as he struggles against his instincts. He can’t feed here, he just _can’t._ So, in the last attempt for saving grace, he kicks his legs backward to make contact with the hunter’s shins, colliding with his knees coincidentally and scraping at his forearms as the hunter hisses behind him.

Then, he hears a loud gurgle, and glances over to see the hunter beginning to bleed over his shoulder as the arms laxen and slip from his neck, and he falls to his knees and begins to choke loudly, hands trembling as the hunger threatens him and lungs burning as the air rushes back into him, torn between physical death and biological need, and when he looks back over his shoulder to where the hunter had fallen, he’s laid out motionless on the ground with a single arrow protruding from his bloodied forehead. 

Shaken up, the archer drops his equipment and his bag as he rushes to Zitao’s aid, kneeling down and bracketing him in. “Tao,” he gasps out helplessly, and Zitao notices that his voice is trembling. “Tao, are you okay? Can you hear me?” 

He supports himself on his hands and knees as he heaves in deep, loud breaths, coughing as his trachea becomes readjusted to accepting the oxygen, as he fights a losing battle between morale and instinct, yet the aroma of citrus cages him safely in and it helps. “I’m - ” he tries to wheeze out, his throat sore from coughing. “I’m fine,” he rasps, and Yifan reaches carefully for his upper arms to try and help him up.

“ _ **Look out**_!” They hear off to the side, and Zitao looks up to see that not only is Chanyeol bleeding and holding an injured wrist in blood-soaked fingers, but the hunter that Zitao assumes could have been responsible for attacking him is charging forward, his handgun at the ready to attack, and Zitao begins to panic as Yifan rears back away from him.

Shakily, Zitao reaches for the gun on his leg holster, trying to slip it out of its leather straps as best as the tremors in his joints will allow, but he unluckily stumbles and the gun tumbles from his fingertips as the hunter raises his firearm and wraps his hand around the trigger, and Zitao’s blood runs _icy._

No, _no_. Not _now_.

He gains a stable grip on his weapon once more and raises it as his finger stutters on the trigger, when pops go off as Chanyeol’s assault rifle kicks back against his shoulders and searing pain rips through Zitao’s lower thigh as the hunter falls lifeless, his handgun soaked in his own blood.

“ _Fuck_ , _**fuck**_ , oh my - ” he cries out in intensity, frigid pain throbbing down his leg as he curls into himself on the ground and grabs at his knee, his wound dark and soaked through his pants as his blood pours over his fingers. “ _Fucking_ \- ”

“ _Tao_!” Baekhyun shrieks out as he sheds his armor and rushes to the boy’s side, his eyes glossy and flooded with tears. “Oh my God, Tao, oh my God, okay, don't touch it. Fucking _shit_ , he shot him!”

Hissing among the pain, Zitao catches the scent of his own blood as it floods the air, unexpectedly sour and acidic, and he wonders briefly if it is his such to his own nose or perhaps to all, until the pain takes over and he feels tears spilling down over his cheeks. “It hurts,” he cries out, yelling out unabashedly, “it _hurts_!” 

As he trembles and sobs, his hardened facade completely crumbling as his childish lack of pain tolerance takes over, Yifan moves into his range of sight with shaky hands and pale skin, having turned pallid in the panic. “It's okay, Tao, it's going to be okay, it's okay, fuck, _fuck._ Who has medical supplies?” The archer blurts out rapidly, desperately. “Gauze, gloves, thread, disinfectant, _anything_.”

“I do,” Chanyeol announces quickly, and the tall hunter ducks down for a second to dive into his bag in a rush, and Zitao blearily watches him fumble and pant, gasp, wheeze, as they all leave their morals at the door when having flocked to him to help. When the hunter stands, Zitao can barely make out the shape of a bottle of disinfectant and a zippered plastic bag, as his vision begins to blur and his senses begin to fade.

“Stay with me,” Yifan mumbles to him as the man gathers him in his lap, holding Zitao’s weakened, leaking body across his legs and propped up in his arms as though a newborn. “Come on, Tao, stay with me.”

His eyebrows furrow as he feels hands wrapping around his leg to lift it up, preparing it for suturing, when he remembers that if any of them come in contact with his blood, they will become infected and will ultimately turn, and it will become obvious whom was the culprit. Lips trembling, he does his best to sit up in Yifan’s arms as he spits out, “Mother - fucker - don’t touch me!”

With widened eyes, Chanyeol’s hands still on the meat of his thigh where his thumbs had been pressing around the gunshot wound to stop the bleeding. “Tao, I can’t stop, I have to get the bullet out so I can sew you back up.”

“I said no!” He shrieks in a shrill voice, worry thickening his tone. They can’t find out like this, they can’t, they _can’t_ , Zitao isn’t ready. “Ah, fucking - piece of  _shit_ - ”

“Tao, _stop_ ,” Yifan gently tries tugging him back into position in his lap, Zitao’s leg propped over the man’s crossed knee for elevation. “He has to get it out, okay? Just relax, we’re going to work on getting it to stop hurting.”

Chanyeol’s gloved hands return to his bloodied skin to dip in the hole the gunshot created in the boy’s pants, and Zitao grits his teeth and screams and writhes as his nerve endings and his tendons burn in protest, as the man’s thick fingers tuck into the bruised, ruined flesh to retrieve the bullet. It hurts, it fucking  _stings_ like nothing Zitao has ever felt before, a pain so inhumane that Zitao can only assume he is dying, before he watches bloodied fingers return with the bullet in its palm, having split as it was forced into the boy’s body. 

As he watches Chanyeol reach for the disinfectant, his eyes widen. He knows how much that shit fucking stings, like cauterizing exposed muscle, and Zitao lurches out of Yifan’s arms in desperation as he attempts to stand.

“Tao, _no_!!” Baekhyun chastises as the boy stands on wobbly legs, his injured one buckling beneath him and causing him to lean all of his weight on his only dependent leg.

“I said I’m fucking _fine_ ,” Zitao hisses through tight lips, face scrunching and teeth grinding as the pain intensifies, shooting up his spine as it threatens to make him crumble. He will be strong, he’s got to be strong, he can handle this. Despite his argument, he feels Yifan’s hand brush against his own as he reaches to tug him down to safety once more, and Zitao swats him away. “I said _**no**_ , God dammit!”

As his arm swings back, the vertigo intensifies and his head begins to sear with migraine ache, and he braces jittery palms against his temples in an attempt to subdue it. As he bleeds out, blood pouring down his leg in dark ribbons and staining the thick of his jeans, he finds his knees softening beneath him and his hearing begin to dissipate, as his vision starts to shiver and ripple.

“ _Tao_!”

The last thing he hears is his name spilling from Yifan's mouth before he finds himself collapsing, every muscle in his body falling weak as everything goes black.

 

 

 

 

__________

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

II: Paroxysm

(pār'ək-sĭz'əm) _noun._

asevere attack or a sudden increase in intensity of a disease, usually recurring periodically.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He intakes a trembling gasp, shivering and writhing into the one-sided warmth against his left half, curling his arms to his chest in a fetal manner. He feels careful pressure in the locks of his hair and the soft brush of something against his skin, feeling naked and bare as though freshly-born. It renders him warm, comfortable, and content as he feels the warmth _breathe_ _._

As he slowly wakes, however, he finds himself groaning as pain tears itself through his lower half, regionally in his right leg up and down his thigh, and his eyes open as he glares unhappily down at himself to see just what the fuck is causing him pain. As he registers everything, however, he becomes fervently confused, and only belatedly realizes he’s in somebody’s _lap_. 

Turning his head slightly, he realizes it is Yifan’s lap he’s laid out in, and that the man has his eyes shut as his chest rhythmically rises and sinks, sleeping peacefully. 

Hadn’t Zitao specifically demanded that Yifan not touch him? He could have sworn he had arranged that in his list of rules for the man to always abide by should he want to remain at Zitao’s side. 

Yet for him to be not only caged in Yifan’s lap like this, unshielded other than where he had been pressed up against the man’s warm chest and his steady heartbeat throbbing delicately against Zitao’s skin, but to have been changed into different pants - something dark gray, charcoal almost, where they billow around his limbs as though far too big - what the fuck must have happened?

Surreptitious, he does his best to attempt to lean up and carefully maneuver himself out of the man’s lap, when white-hot pain sears down his right leg as his muscles lock up in protest of the movement and he gasps out in startled pain, hands jittering as his teeth grind. “Fuck - ” he spits quietly to himself, grimacing as he glances down at himself, his unbridled, socked feet scraping against the pavement beneath them as the tendons in his thigh scream in protest. 

Although Zitao likes to coin himself as very much experienced in the field of keeping himself alive, the one thing he has never before shaken hands with had to be getting shot by a gun, in which Zitao always managed to dodge those which were thrown as well as stop his perpetrators before more shots could have been let off, but with how long he’s been lengthily fasting, the threatening haze of his hunger had gotten the best of him and had made his focus slip. Now having been reduced to a listlessly vulnerable state until he allows himself to successfully feed, Zitao feels disheveled.

Seeing as how he has been clothed, however, Zitao cannot check his wound from here nor in this state, but the thought that people other than himself had undressed him and had done things to his skin and his body, angers him, and it’s only a mere split-second of debate before Zitao lurches forward to try to worm his way out of the man’s lap to find he’s now squirmed around to the extent of waking Yifan up beneath him, and when he just manages to sink onto his good knee and place his palms on the stone flooring, there are warm hands wrapping around his torso and dragging him back to his original spot with a mumbled, “No you don’t.”

As Zitao is forced back onto his bum between Yifan’s legs, long and thick where they bracket him in with exactly the same darkened jeans dirtied at the knees and exactly the same tie-laced boots, he twists himself around with what little leverage he has when not being able to move his legs, and fights against Yifan’s hold on his wrists. “Let _go_ of me, you - you ugly - ”

“Tao, stop it,” Yifan hisses, rubbing his thumbs up the insides of Zitao’s tender wrists as the boy fights him. “You’re going to tear the gash open.”

“ _You_ stop it,” the boy retaliates, his lips pressing into a tight line as he attempts to outmatch the archer, attempts to vie himself strong and courageous against withholding forces. “You - gross, smelly _freak_ , un-fucking-hand me!”

“Okay, now I’m starting to think you actually _want_ me to be smelly,” Yifan quirks expressionlessly, though his voice does not match his countenance as his one and only chaperoned guest fights him, anger raging hotly in his eyes, “because you always tell me that I smell even though I’m probably the cleanest one here.”

“Shut your fucking mouth, Bighead,” Zitao spits. “ _You_ got me in this situation in the first fucking place, genius! If it hadn’t been for you being annoying and distracting me, I wouldn’t have almost fucking died because of your dumb ass!” 

An eyebrow quirking upward, Yifan quiets down - had he just heard that correctly? “Oh, so I distract you?” He quips with a little smirk as the boy shoots him a fiery look, alighted in flames as Yifan digs himself a deeper grave. “Good to know I’m always on your mind.”

As though his fuse had suddenly been cut much too short, the boy fights his way through several different malicious emotions as his facial muscles tremble, biting down on his lip and giving it a brief little chew as he restrains himself, and Yifan must admit, he’s quite impressed with the boy’s self-control when he truly needs it. “Let go of me,” Zitao replies coolly, his words bitter and harsh despite the drop in volume and flame, as though he was truly trying to refrain from lashing out, “or so help me, I will decapitate you right at the fucking root and leave your body here for the hungries.”

Nevertheless, Yifan remains passive as he lets out an impassive little sigh. “Sorry, no can do,” he says casually. “Unfortunately, our two ever-so-kind companions are out ransacking the outskirts of the city looking for supplies for you in order for us to get you to Gull Bay, so I cannot possibly be decapitated right now, because who else would get you there? And no, you can’t walk there - you already tried that, I’m not stupid.”

“Why do I have to have you take care of me?” The boy asks astringently as he finally manages to yank his hands back, despite the force causing him to nearly topple and causing him to have to reach out and plant palms upon concrete to support himself. “Why do _you_ have to wait on me hand and foot, like this? Are you assuming that I’m fucking incapable of helping myself?”

Scoffing, Yifan cuts his eye a little. “Tao, you were _shot_. I know you think you’re big and immortal out here, but you’re human just like the rest of us and none of us are invincible. We could have _all_ died back there, whether that’s what you’d like to admit to yourself or not, but we’re just lucky we’re still drawing breaths over here. So, to answer your question, no, I don’t think you are incapable of helping yourself, but just that you needed a little bit of help from us back there, or you would have died and you know it, Tao.”

Zitao sinks his teeth into his bottom lip as he looks away, not wanting to admit to the truth when it’s coming out of the man’s dirtied mouth. In hindsight, he’s right, yet at the same time, he really isn’t, for Zitao is merely human on the surface yet is much more beneath the thick of his skin, something far more dangerous than man-made bullets and chaotic starvation. Physiologically speaking, his own physicality _does_ , despite Yifan’s rambling, leave him more invincible than the lot of them, yet given his current circumstances, that advantage had been significantly lowered since he has to stay hidden. Despite the hunger that rumbles low in his veins as he approaches his seven-day mark without feeding, Zitao is somehow still managing to keep hold of the strings of his own humanity when faced with adversity. “I want to leave,” he replies with after a long pause, the silence having stretched on as his fingers have begun to fiddle with the ridges of his bandages beneath the thick swath of his pants, and Yifan has comfortably prostrated himself against the adjacent wall with arms crossed over his front, his newly-cut hair slightly stringy over his forehead beneath the shade of the staircase. “Now.”

Still, Yifan shakes his head. “I can’t do that,” he says flatly. “I can’t protect you all on my own, Tao - not when I have to help you walk, and I… I can’t be responsible for you getting hurt. I promised the hunters that I would watch you and take care of you until they returned, and only then would we get going and head to Dryden because I was going to have to act as your second and third legs.”

Confused, the boy’s eyebrows furrow. “Why are you saying it like that?” He asks with a pained expression, his features twisted. “You say that as though you actually give a shit about me. And what, all of a sudden you listen to instructions? How many times have I told you to leave me alone and still you come running right back like a fucking puppy? Go _fuck_ yourself, Yifan.”

Stubborn and emotionally immature, the boy turns himself away so that he no longer has to look at him, his back presented to the archer in a cold-shouldered twist, as he folds his arms over his single uninjured knee, lays his chin upon them, and begins to quietly think. Behind him, Yifan can only sigh to himself as he once again takes one step forward and just about a hundred backward in his relationship with the runaway. Then again, Yifan was quite rebellious in his teenage years, as well, for what fifteen-year-old wouldn’t be? At that age, Yifan had been assisting with the rebellion, yes, but had thought himself quite invincible and had escaped the bases several times to go out walking, partially not believing that there were as many infected as he had been made to believe, and partially thrill-seeking and lusting for the heated rush of danger. At fifteen-years-old, Yifan was a much different person than Zitao might be, but Yifan knows firsthand how tangled his emotions must be, for it must have taken so much out of him to have to do everything all on his own at such a young age. 

“They left you some water,” Yifan offers quietly, reaching over into his knapsack which the boy had been laid upon, and procuring a gray-sheened canteen to settle up beside him in a peaceful offering, not handing it to him directly but merely giving him permission and privacy to do with it what he pleases, much akin to feeding a wild animal. “I thought you’d be thirsty.”

Appeasing the runaway is a difficult task, and Yifan is still very much dwindling in the trial and error stages as he does his best to rationalize him while trying to keep him in line. Zitao, although a very keen adversary, is extremely irrational and tends to act upon impulse which, in such a ruthless, dehumanized world, could very easily get him killed if his guard were to slip. Despite everything he does, however, in his attempts to whittle away at Yifan’s self-esteem and leave him hurt, Zitao is still very intelligent for his age, and Yifan has to give him credit for that. For having kept them alive for several weeks now with only the boy’s wits about them takes gusto and a lot of bravery, and for that, Yifan admires him. 

Which, is why when the boy grumbles to himself something that sounds a lot like a vulgar complaint before a sleek little hand reaches out and quietly takes the canteen, the archer begins to silently smile.

When the boy begins to shiver, however, arms wrapped around his legs as he broods away by himself, Yifan’s smile melts away. That’s right - Zitao hadn’t had a coat to his own self and had been very insistent in telling them that he was fine on his own, despite never refusing Yifan’s coat when it was offered to him over one of the hunter’s coats, for they would smell far too much like them and would only make Zitao hungrier. As he begins to feel guilty, Yifan reaches for his fallen coat which had been lost during their tussle and drapes it across the boy’s trembling shoulders, which earns him a look of angered surprise and a forced squirt of canteen water in his direction. “What are you doing?” Zitao asks abruptly as Yifan settles back into his spot several feet away. As the warmth enraptures him in the calming scent of lemongrass and flower petals, Zitao’s heartbeat slowly subsides. “You better not be doing anything funny back there.”

“You were cold,” Yifan points out flippantly, the corners of his lips curling up in a little grin. “It’s alright to ask for my coat when you’re cold, you know - I would never refuse.”

Shocked by the man’s unabashed flirting, Zitao’s expression twists as he jolts the canteen backward with both hands and sprays him once more, dousing Yifan’s hair and clothes in clean, lukewarm water. “Do you ever shut up?” Zitao bites. “I swear, the second my leg heals and I can walk on it properly again, I’m kicking your ass so hard, your fucking _teeth_ will feel it, Bighead.”

“Alright, alright,” the man grins, lifting a broad hand to swipe water out of his eyes as he slicks back his dampened hair. “I’ll shut up now - but if you’re really not cold, then I suppose you don’t need my coat, then? Well, I’ll just take it back and see if maybe Chanyeol or Baekhyun need it.”

“ _No_ ,” Zitao quips quickly in response, his little hands grasping the unzipped lapels as he glares at him over his shoulder and pulls the fabric around him, curled up in a warm little ball beneath the staircase shade. “You gave it to me, so now it’s mine to use. No take-backs.”

He nods, then, granting the kid permission to use the coat, for Yifan already knows that Zitao would likely sooner jump off of a five-story cliff to his own demise than admit that he actually needs him for anything at all. Nevertheless, Yifan still very much remembers the rare occasions in which Zitao would grow guilty and wary over having snapped at Yifan or having crossed a line, and those little instances of softness are what Yifan clings to within his belief that there is a beautiful little heart deep down in there somewhere. 

As they fall into a quiet, Yifan admires him and simply watches him exist. The boy breathes in calm movements, the thick of the man’s coat around his back rising and falling slowly as he wills himself to calm down, and Yifan admires him. Zitao does everything all by himself; he hunts by himself, he survives by himself, and he channels his emotions and stifles them by himself. In order to tend to him and properly suture up his wound, they’d had to strip him bare down to his gitch in order to look for any remaining pieces of surrounding shrapnel and then had to subsequently find clothing to redress him in. When having been given the job of removing all of his weapons, Yifan had both been quite surprised and additionally not at all to find out that Zitao walks around with dual pocket knives strapped to the skin of his thighs beneath his clothes. 

Although the hunters had been both impressed and slightly frightened, it had made Yifan warm inside to know, truly, just how devout the kid was with keeping himself alive. 

“Why do you keep doing this?” Zitao asks him after a long moment of pure silence, permeated by only the distant rustle of leaves as the wind rolls by and Yifan notices, much to his dismay, just how quiet the air is and just how sparse the birds seem to be. “Why do you keep trying to take care of me? I thought I made it clear that I wanted to be left alone a long time ago, _months_ ago, to be exact.”

“I already told you,” Yifan responds without missing a beat, his face paled beneath wet lashes and equally damp fringe. “I want to protect you and help you get to Iqaluit. I know you’d rather do it alone, but I know how dangerous the world can be when you least expect it, and look what happened back there - had he aimed any higher, he could have blown your organs right out of your body. If the three of us weren’t there to get you out of that and more importantly, sew you back up, you would have died, Tao, and you know it.”

The boy rolls his eyes. “So I would have bled out and passed out, so what? You could have just left me there to fucking rot; not like it would matter much if I lived, anyway.”

In confusion, the archer falls quiet as the air between them thickens with tension, a cold chill running through him as the melancholy tones in the boy’s voice become all too apparent. “Whoa, whoa,” he mumbles after a pause, “what’s all that about? Where is this coming from - what do you mean it wouldn’t matter if you lived?”

In a suddenly-depressive state, the boy’s eyes have turn sullen, dark around the edges as though unseeing, as though soulless and as though deceased. “You’re too naive,” he replies monotonously. “Everyone always says that there’s a light at the end of everyone’s tunnel, that there is always a silver lining, don’t they? That’s what they all say - that after the rain passes, the sun will come out again. But, humans like you are flawed without even realizing it, did you know that? You all praise a higher power and swear upon new beginnings, but you don’t care when it involves things that are non-human.”

“What are you talking about?” Yifan asks, frowning. “I don’t know what you’re trying to say…” 

Bitter and rigid, Zitao’s lips press together in an achingly tight line. “If you’re too dumb to understand that not everything is as it appears,” he states lowly, burying his nose in the coat as he wraps himself calmingly in the man’s scent, “then there’s nothing for me to say.”

Fair enough, it seems, for Yifan knows he is not the most intelligent of fellows, and is certainly not the most street smart, at that, for the boy’s words deeply confuse him for a long period of several minutes. What does he mean not everything is as it appears? Having been raised into a worldwide tragedy, Yifan has dealt with his fair share of secrets around every corner, and thus birthed the worrisome idea to become a nurse in lieu of wanting to hide from those secrets. It had taken him years to muster up the courage to even step out into the exposed air unmasked without the crippling fear that he would inhale the infection. When he had realized that virus was migratable and clustered together regionally, he felt a little bit safer and became a little bit more confident. 

Which only makes it that much more distressing that the boy seems to be keeping something from him, for it had taken Yifan _years_ to even so much as learn the virus’ secrets. “You’re hiding something from me,” Yifan comments in a hushed, casual tone beneath a baritone thread as they settle into silence. “Can I know what it is?”

Scoffing, the boy rolls his eyes beneath heavy eyelids. “Like I would tell you,” he replies with. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

 _Well_ , Yifan thinks to himself as Zitao settles back into the shadows of the staircase and lets his eyes flutter closed, and it’s then that he realizes that the boy might truly need a lot of rest in order to heal, _he did tell me before that he doesn’t like to be asked about himself_. If Zitao ever decided to open up, Yifan has a feeling he would rather do it on his terms than on somebody else’s command. 

Settling back against the wall himself, Yifan intakes a slow breath as he simply tunes in to the sounds of the hushes world around them just beyond the concrete walls. “I wasn’t always such an open person,” he says, creating a conversation with himself as he does not expect Zitao to reciprocate it, “because everyone has secrets, and we all have those secrets that we would rather carry to the grave than reveal. Shockingly, I used to actually keep my mouth completely shut and never used to talk to anyone. Crazy, right? Well, when I fled the base, though, and when I basically lost everything, I stopped being quiet because I no longer had anything to hide. I no longer had _anything_. When people keep secrets,” he explains quietly with a sideways glance in the boy’s direction, and it’s a little bit surprising to see him actually peering up from over the lapels of Yifan’s coat as he listens, “it tells me that they haven’t lost everything yet, or else they wouldn’t care about keeping those things to themselves. There’s something in your life that you still hold onto and care very much about because you don’t want to tell me what it is.”

Then, Zitao’s eyebrows furrow. “Are you a fuckin’ philosopher, or something?” He complains dryly. “That was one hell of a monologue, Bighead, it made my brain hurt. What, are you saying you don’t live for anything?”

“Altogether, no, not really,” Yifan shakes his head as he presses his lips together and shifts his gaze away, “but that’s okay because I’ve been going wherever life takes me and finding things to live for along the way. Right now, my only purpose is helping you cross this country and only that.”

“Why are you so hellbent on escorting me through this continent, anyway?” Zitao rolls his eyes, shaking his head. “It’s like you want to stalk me.”

Slowly, Yifan sighs. “Because at least you still have something to live for, and at least… at least you still have a mother to hug at the end of the finish line.”

Not having expected that kind of an answer, the runaway’s face rigidifies in momentary agony, as though pained. “What?” He questions quietly, tone breathy. “Well… that’s if she’s even alive when I get there, no thanks to having to pause every five minutes because I now have a team that I didn’t ask for.”

“I wasn’t kidding,” the archer interjects. “Believe me, Tao, I _get_ it, this is a very tough world to live in and the margin of possibility that she is still drawing breaths is always going to be slim, but at least we know she could be out there. I never knew my mother.”

Zitao knows that, because he still remembers Yifan telling him how his mother passed away shortly after delivering him, and in a world where childbirth is one of the most potentially dangerous things a person could do, Zitao hadn’t been surprised in the least. Still, Yifan had never presented to him an air of discomfort and uncertainty when talking about it, and the boy had always thought that Yifan was impassive to having had no parents. Now that he is seeing him within the shadows of himself, Zitao realizes he’s been mistaken. 

Still, the simple fact that Yifan had gone out of his way to be somewhat of a protective, dare he say it familial figure for the teenager truly shows Zitao that he has nothing else to live for and nobody else to return to, and that’s a little bit saddening. At the end of the day, Yifan has no rewards to gain the way Zitao does, and the divide between them begins to deepen.

“I’m sure she was great,” Zitao mumbles as the seconds stretch on. “Your mother, I mean. I’m sure she was lovely.”

“Yeah,” Yifan shrugs, “she probably was, considering she gave birth to me of all people. I never got to know her, but there’s not a day that goes by where I don’t miss her regardless. I don’t have any memories of her, but I wish that I did. I wish that I had a mother who I could remember holding me, tucking me in at night, and teaching me things that I needed to know when I got older. I didn’t have any of that the way you did, because I had to learn how to avoid death from the moment I learned how to walk. I just… I wish I got to have a childhood like you, Tao. You had parents who sheltered you from the rebellion, and I had the staff of a societal organization who wanted me dead because I was pacifistic and refused to kill infected.”

And there it is, it seems, the explanation of why Yifan is so soft-hearted and childish at times - he never truly got to be a kid, did he? Now, in his mid-twenties, the man seems to be catching up on what he missed and presents an innocent air the way a child would, unmarred by the evils of the outside world. 

Thinking about it only has Zitao letting out an inaudible scoff as he glances away, realizing just how differentiating the dynamic between a childish adult and a mature teenager really is. 

“Well, you’re here now,” the runaway offers. “You killed your first infected, and you learned how to use weapons in doing that. I’m sure your mother would be proud of you because you’ve come this far and kept yourself alive this long.”

Yifan remains silent despite the flattery, and only moves when his head lifts and he meets Zitao’s eye from across the small divide, glossy in the dim of the sheltered stairwell, and his chapped lips spread into a calm, collected little smile. “Thank you, Tao,” he responds gently. “You’re actually really sweet when you need to be.”

A scoff. “Don’t get used to it, Bighead,” the boy rolls his eyes, sinking down just a bit against the backpack beneath his lower lumbar. “You scratch my back, and I scratch yours - that was our agreement, and when I make an agreement, I don’t take them lightly. I keep my word.”

“I appreciate it,” the archer says as he grins kindly. “Why don’t you get some shut-eye, and I’ll keep a look-out for you, yeah? Chanyeol and Baekhyun should be back later with supplies and probably food - you’re probably starved. I can wake you up when they get back.”

Being surrounded by the man’s coat which surrounds him in his lingering scent, Zitao had more than completely forgotten about his bloodthirst, but oh - oh, Yifan is referring to his human hunger. Not exactly sure how long he’s been out, Zitao certainly isn’t sure how long it’s been since he’s last had a meal, but he has a feeling it’s been quite a while. Besides, Yifan has a very common tendency to keep a close and careful eye on him while he sleeps, being it that each and every time Zitao wakes up from resting, Yifan is there merely several feet away.

“Alright,” he agrees quietly, for he is quite sleepy. The pain thrums low in his muscles, a dull, resounding ache that proves annoying more than it does painful down the length of his leg, and he knows that he’d better not try to use it anytime soon. “Remember - you try anything on me while I’m asleep, and I’ll put one right between your eyes, shitbrain.”

Chuckling, Yifan offers him a gentle little smile as he sighs and crosses his arms over his chest in an attempt at warmth. “Don’t worry, I’ve got nothing to try. I’m not a cannibal. Trust me, I’ll let you sleep and I’ll keep watch and make sure nobody sneaks up on us. I mean, we should be fine here since it’s pretty secluded in these stairs, but hopefully, it doesn’t come back to bite us in the ass.”

As they drift into calm silence, Zitao lets out an elongated exhale as his nerves dull and he manages to fall victim to the sleepiness with the warmth from the man’s coat and his familiar, inoffensive scent surrounding him. He supposes that he could try to twist himself around to unzip his backpack among the fog of exhaustion to procure his blanket, but he finds his limbs too softened and his resolve too low as he huddles into the padding of the coat and lets himself fall asleep.

As though having known what he could have been thinking long after the boy settles into a calm, having settled himself into a laid position with the bag once again beneath his head like a pillow, the archer gives much sympathy for the boy and his injury, and brings out the blanket himself to drape it across the teenager’s lower legs and feet.

“Rule number one,” Yifan softly speaks, voice barely above a hum as he tucks the blanket beneath the boy’s socked feet. “Always keep your feet covered and warm, because that’s where heat escapes.”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

  
“Hey, kiddo, how are you feeling?”

Sluggish, the runaway yawns in his spot prostrate across the concrete flooring as Yifan gently shakes him awake in the darkness of the stairwell. There being no door, Zitao can very well see that the sun has begun to set and has permeated the air in a dimmed bluish glow among the frost of autumn. With how strenuously exhausted his body had been after the injury, he can’t say he’s necessarily surprised that he had slept all the way into sundown. 

Carefully, he manages to tug the blanket from his ankles without straining his quadriceps too much, yet Yifan is there before he can even so much as ask as he extends a hand to take the blanket and fold it up to give Zitao something to rest beneath his lower back when he sits up. “It hurts,” Zitao grits out tightly, the movement causing pain to spike up his leg and fizzle where the bandage lays, “but I’ll live.”

“Well, we’re definitely glad that you didn’t just up and die on us,” Chanyeol comments lightly, “and we’re grateful for that. Welcome back to the land of the living, Tao.”

Chipper as ever despite the dreary situation their team resides in, the shorter hunter offers him a consolidating grin as he slides up the partition on his helmet and shucks a burlap sack from his shoulder, draping it gracelessly across the floor. “We caught you some dinner,” he tells him as he tucks lithe fingers into the leather ties which meet the lapels of the bag. “I hope you like weasel, ‘cause it’s nice and fresh and clean.”

As the taller hunter huddles behind his partner with what looks like a military-grade portable stove, small and metallic with little candle-reminiscent fuels, Zitao’s eyes widen above the collar of Yifan’s coat.

Oh no.

“Oh, I’m fuckin’ starved,” Yifan comments excitedly as he watches the hunter procure the animal from within the sack, and Zitao’s blood runs icy throughout his veins as he watches a gloved hand emerge from the sack wrapped around the neck of the rodent, grayish-brown and furry and soaked in its own blood upon its pristinely white breast, marred by the hues of battle, and Zitao’s skin begins to vibrate unerringly as the hunger returns with a vengeance.

It’s dead, newly-so, but reeks of the earthy, tinny scent of its blood and the sour displeasure of having been killed, and Zitao’s nails dig into his palms in his lap as his throat constricts. Hoping to shove the hunger back down into his lower gut where it belongs, he buries his nose in the coat and begins to breathe in, but it proves very little use. The stench of the weasel is cloying, overwhelming from every angle as the hunter digs gloved fingers into the animal’s fractured skull to retrieve what looks like a nine-millimeter bullet, and Zitao’s brow tenses as he pulls the lapels of the coat tightly around himself and moves to stand.

“Whoa, whoa!” Yifan calls out, lurching to his feet quicker than he can think to. “No no no, don’t try to stand yet, you’re still healing.”

Knowing very well that he could still have a chance to feed since it’s very recently deceased, Zitao’s instincts begin to tremble in his hands and wobble in his uninjured leg as his internal physicality fights between human and infected, and Yifan’s broad hands upon his arms only causes him to jitter as his vision begins to blur. “Let me go,” Zitao blurts out in a hushed whisper, one which catches upon trained ears, and Baekhyun stands behind them with a pressed expression. “I’m…” 

“Are you not hungry, Tao?” He asks in confusion. “You haven’t eaten in over thirty hours. We even caught it fresh for you so it’ll be nice and warm - come on, come sit and eat. You need it.”

With pupils as blown and as black as the night, the boy’s head jerks inhumanly toward the sound, his brain fighting to turn as he fights to remain human, and Yifan lowers into a bent stance to brush the boy’s hair out of his face. “Tao?” He asks. “Hey - you okay? What’s the matter?”

Unfocused eyes meet his own as Zitao smells the blood within the animal flow out of his body and pool from within each and every artery onto the hunter’s gloves behind his back, as the human’s heartbeat thrums quietly beneath the repellant staining his wrists. “I’m fine,” the boy manages to choke out. Being this close to an injured animal and two hunters who don’t wear repellant is making him dizzy and twitchy, and Zitao knows that he needs to escape this room _now_ before he does something he doesn’t want to do. Injured as he is, he lifts the weight off of his injured leg as he plants his palms upon Yifan’s forearms where the man holds him, and says, “I want to go for a walk.”

“Uh, I wouldn’t recommend that,” Chanyeol comments behind the boy, and when Yifan glances over, the hunter is crouched down as his makeshift stove begins to flicker as the fuel ignites. “Seems like our tussle with those bandits the other day wasn’t left in vain, because the town is crawling with them now likely looking for you. We had to kill about six of them just to get dinner.”

“They probably realized their buddies were dead and wanted to find the guys who did it as revenge,” the shorter hunter says as he sighs and shakes his head. As the boy’s head turns just slightly to glance at them from the corner of his eyes where Yifan is hushedly trying to coax him into calming down, the hunter reaches for a switchblade in the side pocket of his bag to begin to skin the thing, and Zitao has to look away. “So, we probably shouldn’t make any moves to leave until the nighttime when they can’t see us as easily.”

Biting into his bottom lip to calm his nerves, Zitao finds himself moving closer toward the archer so as to stay as far away from the thick, powerful scent of the animal’s flesh and blood as Baekhyun slices it wide open. With Yifan this close in proximity, simply several inches away as Zitao allows him to surround him, it helps. It certainly doesn’t erase the hunger, but it definitely helps cut through it, and the sporadic tremble in his hands begins to calm as Yifan’s palms swipe up his arms comfortingly and the repellant’s scent intensifies from the proximity. “I don’t want it,” he whispers, and Yifan hums questioningly as he manages to catch it. “I don’t…” 

“You don’t want to eat?” He asks gently, voice soft as he tilts his head to attempt to meet the boy’s dull, glassy eyes. “You have to eat, Tao. Don’t worry, they’re not going to feed it to you raw - they’ll cook it for you, yeah? Or - are you a vegetarian, maybe? No, you can’t be, because you’ve eaten bison meat with me before.”

“Have you maybe just never had weasel before?” Baekhyun asks carefully, attempting to be cautious with him. “It’s not bad, I promise. You don’t have to help us fry it up, we’ve got it, but you can eat it when it’s done. Is that okay?”

After a second, Yifan gets an idea and carefully tugs on the boy’s arms to gain his attention, and within moments, Zitao is meeting his gaze as though it had taken monumental effort to do so. “Here,” Yifan coaxes tenderly, “let’s sit down here and let them cook. I’ll sit with you, okay? Don’t worry, I’ve got you.”

The archer manages to coerce him into sitting in the corner of the narrow stairwell, back by the shadows of the under as the hunters begin to fry the weasel meat at the foot of the stairs atop what looks like a hand-crafted wok, likely having been stolen from a nearby household and possibly having been stored away inside one of their knapsacks. The boy is silent and rigid as Yifan coaxes him into huddling into the shadows, his limbs trembling as though freezing. “Are you cold?” Yifan asks him, unsure of why the boy is shaking so much.

Not knowing how to explain it himself, the teenager sinks his teeth into his bottom lip and nods, hoping that feigning a low temperature is a good enough cover-up for the infection’s bloodthirst. It’s quite chilly inside the stairwell, likely not well-insulated, but Zitao knows he would not normally be shivering in this high of a chill especially with a coat and his blanket to him. 

“Do you want my coat?” Baekhyun asks as he stands, his trousers ruched at the tops of his boots. “I’m not that cold, you can have it.”

Zitao’s eyes widen as his eyebrows narrow, for that is a _terribly_ bad idea and is practically a death wish if he had ever known one. 

“No need, I’ve got it,” Yifan fills in for him. “He doesn’t really like taking things from people he doesn’t know well - nothing personal, it just takes him time to learn to trust people.”

“We’re not bad people, we promise,” the taller hunter tell him from across the stairwell, his face warmly and goldenly illuminated from the flickering little fire he managed to craft on the concrete, “but I feel that, too, so no worries. I’d actually be concerned if you were okay with taking stuff from us so soon - we could have laced our shit with chemicals, for all you know. _We haven’t_ , but I knew someone who did that to us once.”

“I still have the scars from the rash that gave me,” Baekhyun pouts as he glances down at the boy in concern, worried. “Tao, are you sick, maybe? Maybe you’ve caught a cold, or something. I know that Gull Bay might have medicine, but it’s still a few days away.”

“Better hope he didn’t catch some kind of an infection from that wound,” the other hunter mutters offhandedly as he jostles the meat about. “If he did, that kid’s as good as dead, ‘cause it’s a lot harder to find antibiotics than it is zinc for common colds.”

Zitao knows himself like the skin upon the back of his hand, and he knows _very well_ that he didn’t catch anything from being injured, but is merely running out of time before he successfully turns no matter what he tries to do to stop it. When that happens, he knows he will die and will surrender all consciousness to the infection and will, without a doubt, tear into them hungrily like a pack of rabbits. As more time progresses, the higher his sensitivity to scents and sounds will become, as their voices seem to have intensified as though they were speaking right into his ear canal. He also knows that it will only be a few more days until the hunger becomes too much for him to handle and will cause him to snap.

Nevertheless, Yifan hunched over him like a draped curtain is managing to help, and it reminds Zitao how to breathe. “You guys just cook,” the archer turns his head to look at them, “and I’ll keep him calm. I think he’s fine, he’s just been out of it since the shooting.”

Compassionate and understanding, the hunters offer him dual glances of pity and woe as they do as told and return to slicing and frying the weasel’s meat, and Yifan grazes the padding of the boy’s coat sleeve with a calloused thumb. Now that he’s managed to draw the boy’s attention away from the animal to him, his shivers have slightly calmed and his eyes have brightened, and he carefully licks over his chapped bottom lip with a pink little tongue.

“You okay?” Yifan asks him lowly, having settled onto his rear with a lingering hand on the coat sleeve as the boy takes his time calming back down. His skin has paled, his expression rigid, and it looks as though he’s seen a ghost and is struggling with the thought. 

Now that the meat has all been sliced and has begun to cook, the scent of fresh blood has begun to dissipate, and the gooseflesh upon the boy’s skin has lessened. Slowly, he nods, eyes locked sharply onto the makeshift campfire behind Yifan’s back, visible beneath the length of his arm. If he were honest, yes, he could use a meal, but it’s hard to focus on the desire for food when the desire to feed is prevalent. “I’m fine,” he mumbles. How is he supposed to tell them what’s wrong with him? “I’m just… tired.”

Understandingly, the man nods. “I figured,” he says, “but we have to get some food in you first, okay? Have some dinner, and then you can go back to sleep. I’ll watch over you. Baek,” he calls out, turning his head to glance over his shoulder, “is any of the meat cooked and ready?”

Big-eyed, the younger hunter reaches out with a leather-gloved hand and lifts a single slice of the meat from the wok, and Yifan’s eyebrows raise at the lack of a reaction to the temperature. “I don’t have plates,” the hunter explains, “but it’s fully cooked.”

“Thank you,” Yifan tells him with pressed lips as he takes the meat from him, the musculature quite warm from being pan-fried. “It’s not a lot,” he tells the boy, attempting to rip it in half as though he were about to feed a toddler, “but it’s better than nothing. Here.”

“Your gross hands touched it,” the boy responds with a grimace, his facial lines deepening. “How do I know where you keep them things?”

A deadpan is all he earns. “Tao,” Yifan chastises him monotonously. “My hands are clean, I promise.”

It’s just another defense tactic to isolate himself from the rest of them as he usually does, but Yifan isn’t having it this time. Whether he wants to or not, the boy has to learn to trust at least one other person in a world like this, because it’s far too detrimental to go through this alone. Despite having complaints about the man’s personal hygiene, which Yifan himself knows is rather impeccable, the kid has no qualms about taking the meat from the archer’s hands and beginning to bite into it hungrily. 

Now that it is thoroughly cooked, it neither tastes nor smells of fresh blood any longer, which is both helpful and additionally useless, for it doesn’t do his simmering bloodthirst any favors. In this starved of a state, the boy is hyper-aware of each and every swallow in the room, each thud of a heartbeat and each gnash of teeth as they chew, and it’s making him queasy to hear all at once.

Feeling sick, Zitao manages to finish the meat before huddling back into the coat protectively, keeping himself away from the hunters as far as he possibly can. Although concerned for his welfare, they leave him be and give him space and privacy, conversing with each other but not roping Zitao into it against his will. If he is still ill from the strain his injury had put on his body, then it would be best to not rile him up and instead to let him sleep the pain away. 

Yifan is handed the next serving of meat before the hunters begin to cook their own last, and the archer glances back at the boy to offer him more should he want any - yet he doesn’t get very far with that idea, for the boy has curled up on the floor once more as he sleeps silently, peaceful beneath Yifan’s padded coat. Not a single one of them feels any inkling of inclination to refuse his sleep, for his body likely has never been through such a trauma before.

“You’re incredibly gentle with him,” Baekhyun softly points out as Yifan’s attention is drawn to the boy beneath the staircase, head propped up on his backpack as he uses his blanket as a soft barrier between himself and the cold concrete floor. “How do you manage to have that much patience with him, if you don’t mind me asking?”

To be honest, Yifan doesn’t think about that kind of thing much. “It’s just kind of second nature to me, I guess,” he shrugs, leaving the kid be as he scoots himself closer to their campfire and rests his elbows upon crossed knees. “Besides, it’s really not as bad as it may seem, he just has a very short temper.”

“Yeah, but he treats you like shit,” Chanyeol scoffs as he stuffs another half-slice of meat into his mouth and begins to chew it. “If that were me, I would have gone my own separate way a long time ago because I don’t need that kind of negativity, but we’re different people.”

“Well,” the archer shrugs as he glances down at his lap and begins to pill at the fabric of his shirt sleeves. “I don’t see it as abuse the way you might. To me, he’s very scared and doesn’t know how to react to fear other than to act tough and get angry because that makes him intimidating and it makes him feel large and unstoppable.”

As he listens, the shorter hunter shakes his head when he gives the meat another turnover. “This is Tao we’re talking about,” he tells him pointedly. “The same Tao who waltzed right into bandit territory and got himself shot because he tried to take on three of them at once, and the same Tao who tried to leave you stranded on an apartment awning just so he wouldn’t have to deal with you anymore.”

“No,” Yifan mumbles as he watches the rest of the meat cook, sizzling softly as Baekhyun gives the pieces jostling pokes, “he’s not scared of losing me, that much I know, but I think… I think he’s scared of dying. I mean, he’s certainly not scared of being alive, but I think deep down inside, he’s scared of being helpless and having no way out. When he’d been put in that chokehold before he got shot, he looked like he were about to go into cardiac arrest or something. He looked so frightened like his world was ending and there was nothing he could do to piece it back together. I don’t know, I’m just rambling.”

“Has he always been like that?” Baekhyun asks him. “Headstrong, I mean. He’s always so… tough.”

Not knowing the exact answer to that, the archer shrugs. “I’m not sure,” he says, “but this might be the only way he knows how to live. He’s been alone his entire teenagehood and doesn’t have anybody else to care for him or look after him, so here I am.”

Quietly, the sizzling begins to calm as Baekhyun removes the meat and both hunters gaze at him with furrowed, conflicted expressions. “What do you mean?” The shorter hunter ponders, passing his husband the remainder of the cooked meat. 

Realizing he may have overspoken, Yifan pipes down and begins to watch his words more closely, worried that Zitao may not, somehow, be asleep yet and will shove his knife into the man’s cervical vertebrae when he least expects it. “He’ll fucking kill me if he knows I told you guys this,” the archer whispers, leaning a little bit closer as the hunters’ attention peak as they, too, move in, “but the whole reason we’re trying to cross the city and eventually cross the country is to find his mother. She ran out on him when he was ten, and he hasn’t seen her since and wants to know if she made it and if she… somehow survived.”

Stunned, the shorter hunter’s greasy lips part in a surprised little oval. “Why would she be all the way in Iqaluit?” He asks in a hushed tone. “There’s no _way_ anybody could make it that far without being torn apart by a pack of hungries - why does Tao think _he_ can, of all people?”

“More importantly, why did she leave him?” Chanyeol interjects. “Why would she move across the entire country without her child? That’s some pretty shitty parenting if you ask me.”

“From what Tao told me,” Yifan begins to say, “she dropped him off at Sacro in order to keep him safe, because their specific area’s branch housed all minors but no adults, so I guess they told her that she couldn’t stay and either had to leave or had to take her son with her. I still don’t really know why she went to Iqaluit myself, but Tao probably doesn’t know the answer to that, either, and that’s what he’s trying to figure out. He also said that… everybody else he’s ever known has either disappeared or were killed in the rebellion, so he’s been all by himself since he was ten years old.”

“Holy shit,” Baekhyun breathes out in shock. “That’s why he doesn’t trust people… because he thinks that everybody he gets attached to is going to leave him.”

“Yeah,” the archer shakes his head, saddened that someone as young as Zitao had to deal with such turmoil all by their self. “He managed to escape Sacro and fled to the east, which is where I ran into him in a forest clearing because I had been ambushed and shot in the leg, and I managed to convince him to help me and somehow earned over his companionship in the process. It was a very bumpy road to reaching that kind of an impasse, though, there’s no doubt about that. He just… I’ve never seen someone so determined, you know? He’s so very aware that she likely hasn’t made it because it is such a far-fetched idea to go from Vancouver all the way to the islands, but he wants to know for himself that she didn’t. If she didn’t make it, he wants that proof, that validation, and I think he really needs that as someone who’s never had any. So, right now, I’m really his only source of any support and protection, and even though he doesn’t want it, deep down inside, I think he really needs it but doesn’t know how to address that.”

“That’s why he says he hates you,” Chanyeol laughs, and the lightheartedness makes Yifan smile a little bit, “because you get under his skin and you teach him right from wrong like his parents would have.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t like to be told what to do,” the archer tells them, “but I want him to accomplish this. I never knew my parents, whether I wanted to or not, because the rebellion killed them very early in my lifespan. To have a parent who may be alive for all you know, I would probably be doing the same thing that he is. If either of my parents or any of my relatives, for that matter, were rumored to be alive somewhere in this country, I would be doing everything in my power to find the answer to that so I can know.”

Besides him, the shorter hunter lets out a little sigh as he grins to himself. “You’re so amazing, Yifan, really. I don’t know how you read into people so well to know that Tao isn’t just some misguided punk who gets high off of killing.”

He shakes his head. “You can tell he doesn’t like it but is just used to it,” he states flatly. “You can see it in his eyes when he takes a life - he gets glassy-eyed and his face gets rigid, as though he wishes he weren’t doing whatever he was in that very moment, but he knows he’s got no choice. He knows that it’s either them or him in terms of living.”

“Poor kid,” Chanyeol sighs dramatically, emptying his chest of all the air as he leans back on his hands, full and satisfied from their handcrafted dinner. “Can you imagine having to learn how to kill at ten years old? If that were me, I would have nothing but nightmares.”

The thought settles upon his skin like the daytime’s humidity, and Yifan finds himself glancing slowly back to the teenager sprawled out on the blanketed concrete, just as quiet and still as he had been minutes prior as he sleeps. Does Zitao get nightmares of all of the lives he’s taken, both infected and human? Yifan knows that he’s never witnessed the boy toss and turn as though in the throes of a night terror, but who says they don’t still appear? Perhaps they aren’t vivid and disturbing enough to force him awake, but who says they don’t still exist? Being someone who has nightmares regarding death, as well, Yifan can’t help but worry. “He’ll make it,” he tells them softly. “If anybody has the capabilities to cross an entire continent practically alone, it’s going to be Tao.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” the taller hunter disagrees. “No matter how hard he wants something, he’s still a susceptible kid. He’s fifteen, and he still makes mistakes like the rest of us. If he wants to make it, he needs to let you be by his side to help him get there, because he won’t make it alone. He might think it’s all fun and games while you’re still crossin’ dirt, but when you get up there to the tundra, forget it. If he doesn’t have you to huddle to for warmth up there, he’s as good as dead.”

Despite the disagreement, Yifan only nods. “I understand,” he says, “but he still will at least want to try.”

“Yifan, can I ask you a slightly-unrelated question?” Baekhyun queries him gently. “The two of you probably know by now that this is not an overnight trip, and given the rugged, harsh climate of the southern tundra, it will likely be two or three years until you make it to the island, yeah? So, after you make it - _if you do_ \- will you abandon him?”

Oh. He hadn’t necessarily thought about that bit too much, for they take their lives practically day by day, only focusing on the immediate and never worrying too much about the future. “What do you mean?” He asks. 

“Well, Tao uses you right now as a secondary source of accompaniment to help him reach his destination,” the shorter hunter explains. “Once you two make it to Iqaluit and hopefully find his mother, he won’t need you any longer, right? So, will you stop accompanying him at that moment and set him free or will you keep supporting him and protecting him?”

“Of course,” the archer responds quickly, not missing a beat. “I would never walk out on him because he has nobody else. And yeah, if he finds his mom, he won’t need me anymore, but I’ll leave that up to him to decide because I have nowhere else to be neither anybody else to be with. I have nobody to return to, so right now, Tao is my only friend and I don’t abandon my friends, no matter what.”

Then, he is rewarded with a handsome little smile. “You’re really too precious. Tao should be very lucky to have a friend like you.”

Yifan would love to say that he agrees and possibly couldn’t agree more, but Zitao likely doesn’t know how to even have friends, and the thought makes Yifan feel awfully empty inside with guilt.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
When they make it to Dryden, Yifan really steps it up to keep Zitao light on his feet, as the boy has healed enough to walk but likely not enough to run nor jump, and manages to escort them through the city without having to kill many soldiers whatsoever. What Zitao honestly hadn’t expected was for the man to come up with the brilliant idea of triggering the infected in the town and watching the bandits fumble to avoid them and ultimately cross over into an all-out battle, and it’s likely the most intelligent move the man has ever made, if he’s being honest. 

It’s not something he can easily say he would have ever expected out of someone like Yifan, the finessed bravado he shows as he raps his knuckles and thunks the butt of the handgun against the walls of a nearby industrial block where a crowd of infected had been feeding on the remnants of what he would assume to be an unlucky bandit. Zitao had told him it was a stupid idea, that it would backfire and blow up in his face, but with quick, silent steps, Yifan manages to duck and run from the scene as the hunters follow his small symbolic sounds and find themselves surrounded by starved infected. 

Which, only made Zitao’s eyebrows raise in surprise at how impressively _genius_ the man’s idea had actually been. “You really are a secret Einstein, aren’t you, Bighead?” The boy whispers to him from behind the thickets as they watch the scene unfold through the foliage cracks. 

Proud of himself, Yifan can only grin as he watches his handiwork unfold as the bandits scream in pain and the vociferous gnashing of infected teeth resounds through the lot. “What’d I tell you?” Yifan smiles. “I guess I’m not as stupid as you say I am, huh?”

“Alright, don’t blow _that_ much smoke up your own ass,” the runaway rolls his eyes as he ducks down from the thicket. “You don’t need an ego any bigger than the one you already have. Besides, we have to go collect water from the river down the path - we’re running low.”

“I’ve got plenty of gloves,” Chanyeol offers quietly as they begin to tiptoe out of the graveled lot, leaving the sounds of strained death behind them as they disappear into the woods and down the sandy path. “Remember, don’t let the water touch your skin. We don’t need any of you turning into one of them things.” 

The stream is only about a hundred yards off of the pathways of the industrial block, through the thick of the woods where the sunlight no longer glows and the breeze no longer sways. Having a little bit of experience in retrieving water from infected sources, Yifan no longer has to be instructed what to do and immediately bends with coated gloves upon broad hands and an empty canteen in his palm, and dips it beneath the surface. 

“How many are we filling?” He asks as Zitao kneels onto the dry, desecrated grass behind him and begins to rifle through his backpack for another canteen. “Just four?”

“Actually,” Baekhyun comments, “Chanyeol and I found a few more the day we went to find you guys food when Tao was healing, so we should have about six, now.”

Yifan nods to himself, then, as he lifts the filled canteen and caps it off to hand off for another empty one. Zitao is ready beside him with a rag soaked in the antibacterial disinfectant to wipe the outside of the plastic so as to not get infected water on any of their belongings, before he places it down beside his backpack and waits for the next. 

Six canteens of water should last them around two days if they manage to sanction it off evenly between the four of them, scheduling drinks in the mornings and evenings. Each canteen seems to hold around one full pot of water, meaning they can only successfully boil one canteen’s worth at a time to then divvy out amongst each other. “That’s three,” he announces, and the shorter hunter reaches forward to stuff the filled canteens into his knapsack.

“How many more do you think we might be able to find before the day’s out?” Chanyeol casually questions. “I doubt there will be much else to salvage from this town, but we can still try and we still might find a little bit of something.”

“We’d be lucky if we even so much as found a can of beans,” Zitao replies dryly. “Those fuckin’ bandits picked this area clean, I didn’t see shit on our way over here. We’re probably as good as empty-handed in terms of supplies to find until we hit the next city over.”

Yifan passes back the fourth filled canteen, and both the hunter and the runaway watch as Baekhyun takes the fourth one and begins to slide it into his knapsack, when his forearm suddenly snaps up to wrap around his face as he begins to cough, _hard_. 

“ _Baek_ ,” Chanyeol lurches forward to wrap hands around his husband’s shoulders, coaxing him through the convulsing hacks. Despite coaxing him to take clear, solid breaths, the hunter continues to cough as though something had gotten into his throat. “Hey - you good?” 

Despite shaking his head, the hunter lifts up a raised thumb to signal that he’s okay, but Chanyeol certainly isn’t any more convinced given the rigidity of his expression and the harsh lines of his stress across his forehead. Zitao has a feeling that the man likely breathed in an allergen or if he happens to be really unlucky, a lone spore which means the end of him as they know him. 

After a long moment of concern, having made Yifan reach back without touching him with the soaked, soiled gloves as he waits for a sign that the hunter is okay, Baekhyun manages to get his breath back and clears his throat, swallowing painfully. “S - sorry,” he stutters around a raw throat, and his husband’s warm palms swipe up his back comfortingly. “I’m good, I’m - I’m good. Just had a tickle in my throat.”

Zitao’s heard that one before, and it’s certainly not been anything like a simple tickle in the throat. He’s only seen one person be taken down by spores in his lifetime, and needless to say, it certainly wasn’t the prettiest thing he’s ever watched. It happened to be an officer when he had been on the run, and Zitao had both watched him and listened to him convince his buddies that he might have just been coming down with a cold, but Zitao could smell the infection in him from _miles_ away. Poor sucker didn’t make it to morning.

“We should head back soon,” Yifan tells them with a concerned gaze, “that way we can get him a drink, yeah? We should go.”

And for once, Zitao couldn’t agree more, wanting to get his mind off of the infection before he remembers that it exists inside of himself, as well. It lingers in his mind for the remainder of the day as he realizes that no matter how hard he tries and no matter what he does to salvage his reputation, he will always just be a filthy infected like the rest of them.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

  
Baekhyun does manage to improve despite Zitao’s negative inhibitions, though the runaway can tell that he’s very clearly still a little bit off. Something feels a little odd about him, still, and Zitao can’t seem to put his finger on it.

They camp out for the night on the edge of the city in an abandoned waterfront cabin, one along the brim of a nearby lake in which they manage to find another map, a regional map which encompasses this province as well as the next, and Zitao has spent the entirety of the evening with a pencil and the map as he marks off cities which they’ve crossed through, looted, and passed by. 

“Tao, are you sure you don’t want a drink with us?” Chanyeol calls out humbly, inviting the boy in for another conversation session with them around the fire. “It’s nice and warm - I just boiled it.”

Engrossed in the map, he shakes his head as his immobile gaze follows the pencil as he circles off their next destination before reaching Gull Bay. “No thanks.”

 _To reach Gull Bay_ , the boy mentally notes as he follows the roadways along the map with the point of his pencil, _we continue straight down the highway for about six or seven days including rest stops before hitching a right and continuing up toward the bay._ In the far right corner near the bottom of the parchment, he draws an asterisk and jots down a note for himself. _Note for supplies: swing hard south upon arrival to loot out the towns around Lake Superior. Remember to spend no more than four weeks around the lake._

“What are you planning, Tao?” He hears Yifan ask him calmly, his voice a little bit low as though he were perhaps standing right over the boy’s body. 

When Zitao glances over his shoulder to see if his suspicions could be confirmed, the archer is sitting nearby on a wall-facing cot in dull sapphire sheets, his hands folded calmly between his spread legs as he watches the kid scribble onto the map where he lays on his stomach upon the wooden floor. With the flicker of the flame in the room’s wood-burning heater illuminating the room in a warm, homely glow, the boy had become hyper-focused on getting them to where they need to go. “After we get to the bay, I think we should head straight south toward the Great Lakes to loot there - they probably have a high population of tourist residencies there, which means a lot of supplies like clothes and stuff.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?” The archer responds gently. “Believe me, we don’t mind traveling extra, but we have to make sure that’s what you want. I don’t want you changing your mind later when it’s too late.”

Wordlessly, the boy’s head turns as his dark hair falls away from his eyes and he glances up at him with a rigid expression, contorted in annoyance. “Do I look stupid to you?” He scoffs. “It was _my_ idea in the first place, buttbrain.”

Holding up his hands in concession, Yifan merely grins at him. “Hey, I never said you looked stupid. I just want to make sure you won’t turn around after we get there and yell at us for diverging you from the straight-lined path you made.”

“Yifan,” the boy deadpans. “I _do_ know what I’m doing.”

Aside from the frigid edge to his voice, Yifan thinks that the runaway looks very much like a little kid drawing in a coloring book with cheap crayons, sprawled out as he is with the map in front of him and a focused look on his face. He can easily imagine Zitao in a bedroom with nondescript eggshell walls and a bed with its rumpled comforter tucked in, sprawled on his stomach as he flips through the pages of a new novel he’s managed to get his hands on, and despite his parents’ incessant demands that he give it a rest and go to bed, he continues to read until he falls asleep with his cheek pressed to the pages. Although childish and possibly too young for Zitao as he is now, the thought makes Yifan smile nonetheless and coerces him into sinking to his knees beside him to glance down at his handiwork.

The boy is never a fan of having his personal space invaded, though, and instinctively swipes the map away and says, “What are you doing?”

“Hey,” Yifan whines a little bit, “I just wanted to see.”

Rolling his eyes, Zitao lays the map out across the flooring once more to show Yifan his ideas. “Okay, well, I think after we finish looting the lakes, we head back up the interstate north toward Hearst and continue northeast toward Quebec. You got a problem with any of that, Bighead?”

Thinking about it to himself, Yifan really doesn’t have any objections. “Well - ”

“Too bad,” Zitao interrupts. “It’s my idea and not yours.”

The juxtaposition of the situation makes Yifan pout, but this is how Zitao always is, and Yifan knows that better than most people. Not wanting to cause any further friction, he gives him a supportive little nod and says, “I’ll go wherever you want to go, as long as you’re positive that it’s what you want to do.”

“Yeah, I already figured,” the boy rolls his eyes, turning his attention back down to the parchment. “I can’t get rid of your ass no matter how hard I try. You’re like a one-man cockroach infestation.”

Still, there is one thing Yifan knows he will never be able to forget no matter what happens and no matter how thin his memories become, and that will be the blatant hatred within which the boy expresses his feelings. He is someone who doesn’t know how to process his emotions nor how to deal with them, so his first resort is always to expel them with spiteful words. Although it is an unhealthy behavior, Yifan finds its quite endearing, actually, and smiles as he leaves the boy to himself when he stands and wishes him a good night.

When he returns a long while later to check up on him, long after the time the sun had set upon the horizon and the sky had deepened into muted indigo shades, Yifan’s hand lingers on the doorknob as he sees the runaway laid out on his side on the floor, the map resting beneath the arm which cushions his head as he sleeps quietly in the warm glow of the bedroom. He smiles, for he had predicted that this exact scenario would occur, and he knows very well by now that Zitao has some of the worst sleeping habits he’s ever seen when it comes to setting. 

“One of these days, you’re really going to catch a cold,” Yifan chuckles to himself as he bends to lift the boy carefully and lay him upon the cot, supporting his head with the flattened pillow which remains against the headboard. “And then you won’t be able to tell me I’m just a stupid idiot because I will have been right.”

It’s not long before Yifan leaves, wanting to be absolutely sure that the boy doesn’t wake up from the movement and shove his knife into his body, but rather that he remains sleeping and quietly breathing. He’s so peaceful when he’s asleep, in Yifan’s honest opinion, as it is quite possibly the calmest anyone would ever see him. 

Closing the door behind him, the archer blows out a sigh as he returns to the den to hit the hay himself, for they’ve got a big day ahead of them if they want to reach Gull Bay anytime soon. With how light Zitao is keeping himself on his feet in order to let his quadriceps heal, they might make it there in a week, or they might make it there in two, but Yifan knows they will make it regardless.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
Zitao is perfectly fine as they stem off of the highway down an unmarked exit as they enter the city in hopes of finding supplies and even more successfully, food to eat. Zitao is perfectly fine as they stumble across a corner store and in which, they find bags of old pasta and a container of unflavored oats, all ready-to-eat after having been boiled in water. Zitao is perfectly fine when bandits ambush them and nearly pierce Baekhyun’s neck with an arrow before Chanyeol manages to shove him out of the way, taking the brunt of the arrowhead to his bicep which makes him hiss and bleed into the thick of his shirt sleeve. Zitao, strong and brave, is perfectly fine as he volunteers to yank it out and instructs Baekhyun to suture him back up, as they continue on their path through the town and decide to search a nearby police station in hope of weapons and ammunition.

What makes Zitao suddenly tip over the edge into not being fine and makes him fall silent when the hunters invite themselves into the station with their tactical lights on and their rifles hoisted upon shoulders, is what they find inside the station thumb-tacked to the walls from top to bottom.

Documents, wanted-signs, and handwritten notes all feathered and frayed and rumpled from age and use, and it only takes Zitao a single glance to know what they must be as he notices that some of the letters are written in shapeless, childlike handwriting and others are in clean, elegant script as though written by experienced adults. Zitao sees family polaroids, _have you seen this child?_ posters and strewn medical records posted askew, on top of other documents as though to cover them up, as though perhaps to symbolically cover up the children who were now deceased.

“Why are we here?” He asks in a strained voice as the hunters peer around for ammunition, rifling through the drawers of the front desk in the small foyer. “Do we have to be here?”

Confused, Baekhyun turns to him with his helmet partition slid up. “What do you mean why are we here? This used to be a police station, which means they probably have _guns_ , Tao, and where there are guns, there’s ammo. Why? What’s wrong?”

It’s a stupid question and it makes Zitao swivel on his heel with a cold expression that makes the hunter swallow before he says, “You brought us into an old Sacro hideout.”

It’s then that the hunter remembers what Yifan had told them the night Zitao had avoided eating the weasel meat, about how he had escaped from Sacro and had been living all by himself and all for himself ever since. Then again, Zitao wasn’t meant to know that Yifan had spilled that information, was he? “Is it not okay that we’re in an old Sacro hideout?” He asks awkwardly, hoping to cover up the fact that he knows exactly why Zitao would likely rather skin himself than step foot in another Sacrosanctum sanctuary. 

Nevertheless, the boy says nothing as he presses his lips together and breezes past him as he storms to the back of the station by himself, likely not wanting to talk about it. The coldness of his response makes Baekhyun sigh as he adjusts his hold on the neck of his tactical rifle and continues through the foyer to meet back up with the other two. 

“What was that about?” Chanyeol mumbles to him when he returns to his husband’s side, and Baekhyun notices that the man is gazing through the wall of discarded documentation, trailing his fingers over some of the pages and their torn corners. “Seems like you upset him about something.”

His husband sighs. “We brought him into a Sacro hideout knowing very well that he was tortured there for four years - why would you think he _wouldn’t_ be disturbed by that, Yeol? He probably has trauma from this place.”

“Okay, well, yes it sucks that he has bad memories with Sacro but they probably have weapons we could really use,” Chanyeol informs him. “And yeah, maybe he hates even so much as _breathing_ in this place, but if he wants to get to the lakes of all places, we need guns. I’m running out of bullets, and so are you, and I know the kid is good with a knife, but he already got shot once because he tried to take on a crowd with only that knife. If he gets unlucky like that again, he won’t make it out alive.”

The hunter quiets as his fingers trail over the documents upon the wall, his husband’s expression souring in anguish as he silently reads the notes and gazes at all of the happy faces between parents and children. “This was a very evil place,” he shakes his head as he lowers his gun, allowing it to hang from its strap. “I can’t believe Tao was one of these kids…” 

“I don’t know if all of the branches followed the same protocol,” the taller hunter begins to say in a low tone, “but from what I know, they had separate wings of each building to keep the humans and the hungries separated, that way it wasn’t just all-out carnage. If they didn’t do that and let the hungries spontaneously feed, there would be no humans left to even have escaped.”

“What would happen then?” Baekhyun asks.

“Well,” his husband tisks, his mood dampening as his sight catches on a picture of a young girl kissing her father on the cheek as he holds her in her arms, jovial despite the dark secrets hidden far behind the photo. “If they ran out of humans, the hungries would have escaped on their own terms and would have returned to the wild, but they would end up out-populating the humans in the areas. Long story short, there would be no humans left at all - only the hungries. Our world would have ended.”

“Holy shit,” the hunter breathes out in shock, “but Tao managed to get out somehow.”

“He’s a very smart human, that’s how,” Chanyeol cracks as he turns on his heel and glances down at his husband’s dim, freckled face. “He knew how to escape the hungries, which most humans don’t, and he managed. That’s why he’s so good at survival at fifteen - he’s had a lot of practice.”

It makes sense, being so that most other humans seemed to fall victim at every attempt but Zitao, determined and rigid, was never afraid of losing. Fear, as he is realizing, is man’s biggest downfall. “Do you know much about the Sacro Runaway?” Baekhyun asks him in a hushed voice. “I don’t know much about them, other than the fact that the whole country has a paid warrant out for their capture.”

“I know some,” his husband confirms in a whisper, not wanting to alert Yifan or Zitao of their suddenly-private conversation. “From what I heard, the runaway was immune to the virus and ran off because they wanted to make a vaccine out of their cells.”

“You’re fucking joking,” Baekhyun gasps. “ _Immune_?”

“So I’ve heard,” the taller hunter reiterates. “There are rumors that the runaway was a hungry, but I don’t know if I really believe that because hungries don’t flee individually - they stay in packs, you know? If the runaway was a hungry, it wouldn’t have had the neurological capability nor the knowledge to flee alone. It would have escaped as a group with the other hungries, so I think the runaway was just a smart human. That’s why there’s such a high reward set out for their capture because they’re the only one that’s been found to not react to the virus and if someone can get their hands on the runaway, they’ll be able to engineer a vaccine from their cells.”

A sigh. “Jesus Christ,” Baekhyun shakes his head in disbelief. “If they’re a single, individual human, do you know how hard it would be to find them? They’ll never bring them into captivity.”

“That’s exactly my point,” his husband agrees as he lets go of the last note and raises his rifle once more. “Anyway, we should probably press on further - word on the street used to be they kept their artillery in the back rooms beneath the floorboards.”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“Hey.”

Startled by the hand that wraps itself indignantly around his arm, Zitao slides his knife from his belt within milliseconds and slides the blade free as Yifan spins him around, prepared to slice. When he realizes that it’s the archer and can begin to calm his heartbeat down, Zitao blows out an exasperated sigh and rolls his eyes dramatically as he hisses, “What the fuck do you want? You nearly gave me a fuckin’ _heart attack._ ”

He expects Yifan to smile all shittily like the annoying jerk-off that he is, expects him to show him bashfully something that he’s found that he finds useful for their survival. What he gets, though, are cold, dismayed eyes that are unusually uncharacteristic of someone like Yifan, and it makes Zitao frown a little bit in confusion. He wonders if something happened while he had his back turned, for Zitao knows that for once, he didn’t have anything to do with dampening the man’s feelings. “Is it true?” Yifan asks quietly.

Confused, the boy frowns, his brow furrowing. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I overheard the hunters talking,” the archer continues without missing a beat, “about _you_. About - about the Sacro Runaway.”

Quietly, Zitao’s expression begins to blank. No - they can’t possibly know.

“They were talking about how there’s a warrant out for your capture along with that reward,” Yifan whispers to him in the quiet of the makeshift nursery ward, “but they were also saying that there are rumors that the runaway is… a hungry. That’s… that’s not what you are… right?”

It’s like Zitao to roll his eyes and scoff, to say that he’s talking out of his ass and that he has no idea what he’s saying, but all he gets is silence as the boy presses his lips together and glances down at the knife in his hands.

“Why would I be a hungry?” Zitao finally says. “If I was a hungry… do you really think I would be fighting this hard to stay alive? Do you really think I would be fighting this hard to go find a human all the way across the country when I have three standing right in front of me if I was a hungry? Do you really think I wouldn’t have killed myself already just to get myself out of the never-ending torture of living like a fucking _vampire_ if I was a hungry?”

Oh. “Well… no.”

“And if I was a hungry,” Zitao presses, voice just a step above a whisper as his expression becomes rigid, “what makes you think I wouldn’t have fed from you first?”

He doesn’t get a finalizing statement, for the boy simply strides out of the room with heavy footsteps as he releases his anger within his limbs, practically stomping his way through the concrete structure as Yifan remains stood in the middle of the ward, confused. 

Of course, it was just a rumor, after all, but they had also said that the runaway was immune to the virus - does that mean that Zitao is immune? How could Zitao be immune? That doesn’t make any sense, because if he was immune, then… 

Eyes widening, Yifan’s heartbeat skips. 

_No, he can’t be._

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 


End file.
